^■^^^^^^nH^K^HM^^H 


LJL1. 

M  OLIPHANT 
SMEATON 


FAMOUS 

•SCOTS* 
♦SERIES' 


: 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


GIFT  OF 

JAMES   J.   MC   BRIDE 


/, 


*K 


/  / 


\ 


WILLIAM 
DUNBAR 


FAMOUS    SCOTS    SERIES 

The  following  Volumes  are  now  ready : — 

THOMAS  CARLYLE.     By  Hector  C.  Macpherson. 

ALLAN  RAMSAY.     By  Oliphant  Smeaton. 

HUGH  MILLER.     By  W.  Keith  Lease:. 
^  JOHN  KNOX.     By  A.  Taylor  Innes. 

ROBERT  BURNS.     By  Gabriel  Setoun. 

THE  BALLADISTS.     By  John  Geddie. 

RICHARD  CAMERON.     By  Professor  Herkless. 

SIR  JAMES  Y.  SIMPSON.     By  Eve  Blantyre  Simpson. 

THOMAS  CHALMERS.     By  Professor  W.  Garden  Blaikie. 

JAMES  BOSWELL.     By  W.  Keith  Leask. 

TOBIAS  SMOLLETT.     By  Oliphant  Smeaton. 
_- FLETCHER  OF  SALTOUN.     By  G.  W.  T.  Omond. 

THE  BLACKWOOD  GROUP.    By  Sir  George  Douglas. 

NORMAN  MACLEOD.     By  John  Wellwood. 

SIR  WALTER  SCOTT.     By  Professor  Saintsbury. 
„ —  KIRKCALDY  OF  GRANGE.     By  Louis  A.  Barbe\ 

ROBERT  FERGUSSON.     By  A.  B.  Grosart. 

JAMES  THOMSON.     By  William  Bayne. 

MUNGO  PARK.    By  T.  Banks  Maclachlan. 

DAVID  HUME.    By  Professor  Calderwood. 

WILLIAM  DUNBAR:    By  Oliphant  Smeaton. 


WILLIAM 
DUNBAR 

BY 
OLIPHANT  I 
I SMEATON     O 


FAMOUS 

scots: 

SERIE5 


PUBLISHED    BV    : 
CHARLES    »V*<i» 

scribners  sons 

Ki&T  NEW  YORK 


PREFACE 

The  present  Life  of  Dunbar  is  an  attempt  to  place  before 
the  reader  in  a  popular  form  the  facts  in  the  life  of  one  of 
Scotland's  greatest  sons,  who  has  by  no  means  received  the 
attention  either  his  genius  or  his  achievements  merited. 
Being  a  popular  sketch,  therefore,  in  a  popular  series,  I 
have  purposely  avoided,  as  far  as  possible,  the  discussion 
of  recondite  controversial  topics,  and  the  introduction  of 
dry  disquisitions  on  obscure  points  of  diction  or  on  matters 
which  possess  an  interest  merely  antiquarian.  I  have  also 
slightly  modernised  the  archaic  spelling  of  the  extracts  I 
have  had  occasion  to  quote,  so  that  the  general  reader 
might  be  able  to  follow  without  difficulty  the  sense  of  the 
text. 

Besides  Sheriff  Mackay,  to  whom  I  have  confessed  my 
obligations  elsewhere,  I  must  return  thanks  to  my  friend 
Dr.  A.  B.  Grosart,  whose  pricelessly  valuable  volumes  on 
sixteenth  and  seventeenth  century  literature  have  been 
of  immense  service ;  also  to  Mr.  W.  Keith  Leask,  M.A., 
for  kindly  revising  the  proofs,  and  for  the  suggestion  of 
many  valuable  emendations. 

OLIPHANT  SMEATON. 

Edinburgh,  April  1898. 

712529 


TO 

SHERIFF   .ENEAS    J.   G.   MACKAY 

AND 

DR.    J.    SCHIPPER 

(PROFESSOR   OF  ENGLISH   PHILOLOGY  IN  THE 
UNIVERSITY   OF  VIENNA) 

BY  WHOSE  LABOURS 
OUR    KNOWLEDGE  OF  THE   POETRY  OF 

WILLIAM    DUNBAR 

HAS   BEEN   INCREASED 
THIS   LITTLE   VOLUME   IS    INSCRIBED   BY 

THE    AUTHOR 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  I 

PAGE 

Scotland's  Golden  Age 9 


CHAPTER  II 
Birth  :  Parentage  and  Early  Years      ....      23 

CHAPTER  III 

Life  as  a  Friar  :  Disgust  with  Clericalism  .        .      35 

CHAPTER   IV 
Early  Years  of  State  Service 43 

CHAPTER  V 
The  Epoch  of  the  'Flyting' 58 

CHAPTER  VI 

The  Epoch   of   the   King's   Marriage  :   Dunbar  as   a 

Courtier  in  England 68 

CHAPTER  VII 

Celebration    of   the    Marriage  :    Dunbar's    Epitha- 

lamium 79 


8  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  VIII 

PAGE 

At  the  brilliant  Court  of  Scotland's  '  Merry  Mon- 
arch'       91 

CHAPTER  IX 

The  Years  immediately  preceding  Flodden  .        .       101 

CHAPTER  X 
The  Dark  Days  of  Flodden no 

CHAPTER  XI 
Dunbar  as  an  Allegorist  and  Satirist  .        .        .124 

CHAPTER  XII 
Dunbar  as  a  Love-Poet  and  Elegist      ....       141 

CHAPTER  XIII 

Dunbar  as  a  Painter  of  Contemporary  Manners — as 

a  Didactic  or  Religious  Poet — Conclusion    .        .       150 

Index 157 


WILLIAM     DUNBAR 
AND    HIS    TIMES 

CHAPTER   I 

Scotland's  golden  age 

A  short,  rather  rotund  figure,  a  face  rudely  and  stamped 
with  evidences  of  the  love  of  good  cheer;  eyes  small, 
beady,  and  dark,  twinkling  at  times  with  an  ever-present 
sense  of  the  humorous  side  of  life,  then  anon  blazing  with 
a  fierce,  contemptuouss  corn  of  meanness,  hypocrisy,  and 
injustice ;  a  tongue  as  mellifluous  in  speech  as  his  to  whom 
was  given  the  title  '  Golden  Mouth,'  yet  betimes  capable 
of  a  sardonic  sarcasm  that  burned  like  an  acid  where  it 
lighted, — such  is  the  portrait  that  has  come  down  to  us 
from  various  sources  of  that  mighty  genius,  who,  though, 
alas !  all  too  little  known  among  us  of  these  latter  days, 
has  yet  been  adjudged  by  many  of  our  most  competent 
English  critics  to  be  the  peer,  if  not  in  a  few  qualities  the 
superior,  of  Chaucer  and  Spenser. 

But  William  Dunbar,  great  though  he  was  in  his  day, 
was  not  the  only  star  that  gleamed  in  the  Scots  literary 
firmament.  The  age  was  favourable  to  the  fostering  of 
literature  and  art,  because  a  ruler  occupied   the   throne 


io  FAMOUS  SCOTS 

whose  instincts  were  all  towards  culture  and  refinement. 
For  the  first  decade  of  the  sixteenth  century,  and  onwards 
until  that  fatal  September  9,  15 13  saw  the  defeat  and 
death,  on  the  terrible  field  of  Flodden,  of  the  greatest  of 
the  Stuarts,  was  a  veritable  '  golden  age '  in  early  Scottish 
literature.  The  country,  at  peace  during  the  long  reign 
of  James  iv.,  had  been  steadily  increasing  in  wealth  and 
civilisation.  The  King,  undoubtedly  the  ablest  adminis- 
trator of  his  dynasty,  to  whom  the  sobriquet  of  'the 
Merry  Monarch '  was  much  more  appropriately  applicable 
than  to  his  descendant  Charles  11.,  was  at  the  height 
of  his  popularity.  The  country  was  prosperous,  and  its 
prosperity  exercised  a  reflex  influence  on  the  intellectual 
character  of  the  people.  From  Inverness  to  the  Tweed, 
Scotland  lay  at  its  ruler's  feet,  in  a  measure  never  equalled 
during  the  reign  of  any  of  his  predecessors.  The  High- 
lands and  the  Islands  also  were  overawed  by  the  martial 
attitude  of  him  who,  if  first  in  joust  and  sword-play  and 
in  all  the  manly  sports  of  the  period,  yet  could  strike 
swiftly  and  strongly  when  need  arose. 

Never  had  the  Scottish  Court  been  so  brilliant  as  during 
his  reign.  The  nobles,  attracted  from  their  gloomy  castles 
and  peels  to  the  capital — the  haughty  Earls  of  Angus  and 
of  Mar,  the  Earls  Crawford,  Morton,  Argyle,  Athole, 
Lennox,  Errol,  and  Caithness,  the  Lords  Elphinstone, 
Forbes,  Ross,  Sinclair,  and  Maxwell — they  with  their  fair 
dames,  along  with  many  other  lords  and  gentlemen,  main- 
tained a  style  almost  regal  in  its  magnificence,  and  caused 
the  Scottish  Court  to  rank  as  one  of  the  most  brilliant  in 
Europe  during  that  period. 


WILLIAM  DUNBAR  n 

The  King  himself  also  was  a  man  with  but  few  peers 
among  his  royal  brethren  of  the  age.  While  fully  capable 
of  maintaining  all  the  dignity  of  his  position  when  occasion 
demanded,  he  loved  to  escape  from  the  formality  of  the 
Court,  and,  like  his  son  after  him,  to  wander  in  disguise 
throughout  his  kingdom,  learning,  as  did  Haroun  Alra- 
schid,  the  habits  and  customs  of  his  humblest  subjects, 
and  becoming  familiar  with  their  grievances. 

Scottish  trade  was  quadrupled  during  his  reign,  when, 
as  Pitscottie  tells  us,  '  there  was  great  plenty  for  man  and 
beast.'  He  it  was  also  who  first  created  a  fleet  to  guard 
his  country's  commerce  and  fisheries.  Hill  Burton  in  his 
picturesque  survey  of  the  reign,  says  :  '  King  James  took 
a  deep  personal  interest  in  the  progress  of  a  shipping  force, 
and  felt  great  delight  in  visiting  the  shipping-yards,  and 
encouraging  inventions  and  projects  in  shipbuilding.'  Sir 
Andrew  Wood  of  Largo,  and  Sir  Andrew  Barton,  in  the 
Yellow  Caravel  and  the  Great  Michael,  were  notable  sea- 
captains  in  his  reign,  while  the  Scottish  flag  was  respected 
in  all  waters. 

The  influence  of  the  Renaissance,  however,  had  ex- 
tended north  of  the  Tweed.  The  bonds  of  clerical 
intolerance  and  quibbling  scholasticism  had  been  burst. 
The  treasures  of  Greece  and  of  Rome  (or,  at  least,  their 
influence),  which  the  industry  of  the  great  Oxford  scholars, 
Grocyn,  Linacre,  Colet,  and  with  them  Erasmus,  was  un- 
locking for  Englishmen,  after  the  downfall  of  Constanti- 
nople scattered  Byzantine  illuminati  over  Europe,  had 
been  brought  north  to  the  three  existing  Scottish  Univer- 
sities— St.  Andrews,  Glasgow,  and  Aberdeen.     Nay,  there 


iz  FAMOUS  SCOTS 

is  even  a  tradition,  according  to  the  late  Professor  Morley, 
that  the  great  Erasmus  himself  had  paid  a  visit  to  the 
Court  of  this  munificent  patron  of  learning. 

But  of  all  the  boons  James  iv.  conferred  on  his  country, 
the  greatest  undoubtedly  was  the  encouragement  he  ex- 
tended to  Walter  Chepman  and  Andro  Myllar,  burgesses 
of  Edinburgh,  who  first  introduced  printing  into  Scotland. 
The  monarch  granted  them  a  patent  to  exercise  their  art. 
The  wonder  excited  by  the  new  art  was  intense.  By  the 
common  people,  nay,  even  by  many  of  the  more  ignorant 
parochial  clergy,  the  invention  was  characterised  as  simply 
a  device  of  the  Evil  One  to  do  away  with  the  production 
of  books  within  the  sacred  seclusion  of  the  monastic 
Scriptoria.  One  parish  priest  in  Fife  is  reported  to  have 
warned  his  flock  never  to  open  these  printed  books, 
otherwise  the  evil  spirits  that  were  residing  in  each  letter 
of  the  volume  would  take  possession  of  them.  Not  only, 
however,  did  James  give  Chepman  and  Myllar  this  patent, 
but  he  bought  up  the  books  as  they  were  issued  from  the 
press,  and  bestowed  on  the  printers  many  a  goodly  gift  in 
money  to  keep  the  types  a-moving.  Thus  the  benefits  of 
the  new  learning  were  diffused  among  the  people  of  Scot- 
land just  at  the  auspicious  moment  when  their  minds  were 
ready  for  the  reception  of  the  seeds  of  culture. 

At  the  Court  of  the  fourth  James,  where  all  learning 
was  so  nobly  patronised,  no  branch  of  literature  was  more 
warmly  encouraged  than  poetry.  The  sunshine  of  the 
royal  countenance  and  approval  fostered  the  genius  of  a 
crowd  of  singers  in  whom  the  poetic  inspiration  was 
genuinely   present.      No   Court    gathering   at    Holyrood, 


WILLIAM  DUNBAR  13 

Linlithgow,  Perth,  or  Dunfermline  was  esteemed  complete 
unless  some  one  of  the  poets  most  in  repute  had  com- 
posed an  ode  to  be  sung  by  the  King's  minstrels.  The 
ruffling  gallants  in  slashed  doublets  and  crimson  hose, 
with  their  gold  chains  and  jewelled  hunting-horns,  to  whom 
the  embellishment  of  their  person  was  the  sole  aim  in  life, 
had  to  give  place  in  the  esteem  of  the  '  Merry  Monarch ' 
to  the  humble  '  Makar,'  whose  quaintly  sweet  songs  were 
the  delight  of  himself  and  the  fair  ladies  of  his  Court. 
Those  were  the  golden  days  of  Scotland's  prosperity,  when 
bluff  King  Hal  and  merry  King  Jamie  were  attached  to 
one  another  by  ties  of  friendship  as  real  as  they  seemed 
enduring.  Alas,  that  'a  woman's  gage  of  love,'  and  she 
'a  false  fair  of  France,'  should  have  had  power  to  shatter 
prospects  so  promising ! 

But  while  the  century  was  yet  young,  and  immediately 
subsequent  to  his  marriage  with  Margaret  of  England  in 
1502,  all  was  peaceful  and  prosperous.  Then  it  was  that 
at  each  courtly  function  four  notable  figures  might  have 
been  observed,  each  concentrating  upon  himself  a  degree 
of  attention  only  bestowed  otherwise  upon  the  King  and 
the  more  important  nobles  of  the  realm.  Yonder  is  the 
eldest  of  the  quartette,  a  man  of  noble  presence,  but  on 
whom  the  burden  of  a  mighty  weight  of  years  lies  heavily. 
Though  attired  in  semi-clerical  garb,  his  long  silvery  beard 
and  flowing  hoary  locks  proclaim  that  he  is  attached  to 
the  strict  rule  of  none  of  the  leading  Orders  in  Scotland. 
But  in  good  sooth  the  simple  black  robe  of  the  scholar  at 
the  Court  of  James  iv.  will  win  him  more  regard  than  a 
canon's  cope  or  the  bishop's  rochet.      'That  is  Robert 


i4  FAMOUS  SCOTS 

Henryson,1  preceptor  in  the  Benedictine  convent  at  Dun- 
fermline,' whispers  one  in  the  crowd,  and  we  know  that  in 
spirit  we  stand  beside  the  father  of  Scottish  pastoral  poetry 
who  in  Robene  and  Makyne  produced  a  piece  wherein  we 
breathe  the  natural  atmosphere  of  woodland  life,  free 
from  all  the  extravagances  of  impossible  shepherds  and 
shepherdesses.  Who  has  not  that  glorious  opening  stanza 
in  his  mind,  beginning 

'  Robene  sat  on  a  good  green  hill 
Keeping  ane  flok  of  se  [sheep],'  etc.  ?— 

a  passage  which  smacks  so  thoroughly  of 

1  Flora  and  the  country  green, 
Dance,  and  Provencal  song,  and  sunburnt  mirth.' 

Born  in  or  near  Dunfermline,  Henryson  appears  to  have 
spent  all  his  days  as  a  schoolmaster  in  his  native  town, 
and  died  at  a  patriarchal  old  age  within  sight  and  sound 
of  the  bells  he  had  listened  to  in  childhood.  To  great 
skill  in  versification  and  imaginative  wealth,  he  unites  a 
power  of  vigorous  and  incisive  thinking  surpassed  by  none 
of  his  contemporaries.  His  Testament  of  Faire  Creseide, 
the  Abbaye  Walk,  the  Bhidy  Serk,  and  the  Garment  of 
Glide  Ladyis  are  poems  of  a  very  high  order  of  excellence, 
which  deserve  to  be  much  better  known  than  at  present 
they  are.  While  he  cannot  rival  Dunbar  in  the  vigour 
and  picturesqueness  of  his  poetic  vocabulary,  or  Gavin 
Douglas  in  keenness  of  spiritual  vision,  he  equals  either 

1  The  general  consensus  of  opinion  places  Henryson's  death  in  the  year 
1498  ;  a  few  authorities  are  inclined  to  think  he  lived  until  1503.  I  have 
here  adopted  the  latter  hypothesis  merely  for  the  sake  of  being  able  to 
group  the  four  great  poets  of  the  reign  conveniently  together  at  an 
imaginary  Court  function. 


WILLIAM  DUNBAR  15 

in  the  almost  photographic  fidelity  of  those  reproductions 
of  the  life  of  the  period  wherewith  his  poems  are  replete. 

In  the  immediate  company  of  the  King  and  his  youthful 
Queen,  whom  he  is  endeavouring  to  amuse  with  some 
brilliant  sallies  of  wit  that  keep  his  auditors  in  a  simmer 
of  merriment,  is  a  short,  rotund,  ruddy-visaged  man,  whose 
dress  is  so  rich  and  unclerical  that,  were  it  not  for  'his 
shaveling  pate,'  we  would  set  him  down  as  'ane  lord  of 
hie  degre.'  This  second  laureate  of  the  Court  is  reciting 
the  stanzas  of  a  poem  he  has  composed  on  '  Ane  Daunce 
in  the  Quene's  Chaulmer,'  which  tickles  the  risible  faculties 
of  the  two  royal  personages  so  persistently  that  at  length 
James  is  obliged  to  cry,  '  Hold  ye,  William  Dunbar  j  by  'r 
Ladye,  but  I  '11  have  to  get  ye  some  fat  benefice  in  the 
country  to  save  our  sides.'  From  which  remark  we  glean 
the  fact  that  the  jolly  priest  is  none  other  than  the  great 
author  of  The  Golden  Targe,  The  Merle  and  the  Night- 
ingale, The  Thistle  and  the  Rose,  and  the  terrible  Flyting 
between  Dunbar  and  Kemiedy. 

But  who  is  that  tall,  gaunt  individual  who  watches 
Dunbar's  efforts  to  amuse  the  King  and  Queen  with  a 
sort  of  sorrowful  pity,  as  though  he  were  grieved  to  behold 
the  greatest  genius  of  the  Northland  condescending  to 
play  the  fool?  Attired  in  the  simple  black  robe  of  the 
scholar,  with  a  skull-cap  covering  his  head  where  the 
grizzled  locks  have  yielded  to  the  scythe  of  Time,  he 
seems  one  with  whom  the  years  have  dealt  hardly. 
Presently  attention  is  directed  towards  him  by  Dunbar 
appealing  to  him  as  'gude  Maister  Walter  Kennedy,'  to 
settle  some  playful  dispute  between  the  'Merry  Monarch' 


1 6  FAMOUS  SCOTS 

and  his  '  Laureate,'  as  James  was  wont  to  style  the  author 
of  The  Golden  Targe.  From  the  reference  we  recognise 
the  fact  that  the  arbiter  selected  is  no  other  than  Dunbar's 
great  poetic  rival  and  lifelong  friend,  with  whom  he  carried 
on  a  sportive  metrical  warfare  akin  to  the  jeu  parti  of 
early  Provencal  poetry,  or  to  that  war  in  verse  between 
the  two  great  Italian  poets,  Luigi  Pulci  and  Matteo  Franco. 
As  in  the  case  of  the  Florentine  rivals  so  in  the  Scottish, 
the  '  Flyting,'  though  carried  on  with  great  apparent  bitter- 
ness, caused  no  diminution  in  the  friendship  existing 
between  Kennedy  and  Dunbar. 

Had  the  opposite  been  true,  the  latter  in  his  solemn 
Lament  for  the  Makars  would  scarcely  have  written  of  his 
antagonist,  then  lying  sick  apparently  unto  death — 

'  Gude  Maister  Walter  Kennedy 
In  point  of  deid  lies  verily, 
Great  ruth  it  were  that  so  suld  be, 
Timor  mortis  conturbat  me.' 

Walter  Kennedy,  who  ranks  only  second  to  Dunbar  as 
one  of  Scotland's  greatest  poets,  was  the  sixth  son  of 
Lord  Kennedy  of  Cassillis  and  Dunure,  in  Ayrshire.  Born 
about  the  same  time  as  his  friend  and  rival,  and  educated 
for  the  Church,  he  was  appointed  Provost  of  Maybole, 
the  patronage  of  which  collegiate  church  was  in  the  hands 
of  his  own  family,  who  had  founded  it.  He  cannot  have 
held  this  preferment  long,  probably  it  was  only  a  temporary 
appointment,  for  when  he  wrote  the  Flyting  he  was 
deputy-clerk  of  Carrick,  which,  as  Paterson  states,  he 
held  under  his  brother  David,  Earl  of  Cassillis.  In  1510 
he  is  mentioned  in  a  deed  as  Vicar  of  Douglas.     In  the 


WILLIAM  DUNBAR  17 

following  year  he  held  some  appointment  in  connection 
with  the  College  of  Glasgow,  and  acquired  the  property 
of  Glentig.  In  his  worldly  circumstances  he  seems  to 
have  been  as  prosperous  and  comfortable  as  Dunbar  was 
unhappy. 

As  a  poet  one  of  Kennedy's  chief  excellences  is  his 
unrivalled  power  of  word-painting,  for  which  he  is  warmly 
eulogised  by  Sir  David  Lyndsay  in  the  prologue  to  the 
Complaynt  of  the  Papyngo — 

'  For  quho  can  now  the  workis  countrafait 
Of  Kennedie  with  termes  aureait  ? ' 

And  the  same  author  affords  a  very  apt  testimony  to  the 
estimation  wherein  Kennedy  was  held  in  his  day  by  the 
following  lines — 

'  Get  he  into  the  courte  auctoritie, 
He  will  precell  Quintyn  and  Kennedie.' 

Alas  !  with  the  exception  of  his  share  in  the  Flyting, 
his  religious  poem  The  Passion  of  Christ,  his  Invective 
against  Mouththankkss,  and  his  Prais  of  Aige,  all  his 
works  have  perished,  although  we  learn  from  contemporary 
testimony  he  was  quite  as  voluminous  an  author  as  Dunbar. 
That  he  was  high  in  favour  with  James  iv.  and  his  Queen, 
and  was  moreover  regarded  as  one  of  the  representative 
poets  of  the  age,  is  manifest  from  many  existing  evidences. 
His  brother -poet  Gavin  Douglas  ranked  him  above 
Dunbar,  but  the  critical  estimate  of  the  hot-headed 
Bishop  of  Dunkeld  is  scarcely  to  be  accepted  save  cum 
grano  salis,  seeing  that  the  author  of  the  Thistle  and  the 
Rose  and  he  were  at  times  not  on  very  friendly  terms.     So 

B 


18  FAMOUS  SCOTS 

much  so  was  this  the  case  that  Dunbar  makes  no  mention 
of  Gavin  amongst  the  '  Makars '  of  his  time.  But  the  man 
of  whom  the  gifted  Bishop  of  Dunkeld  could  write  in  his 
Palice  of  Honotir  as  '  Greit  Kennedie'  must  have  left  the 
impress  of  his  genius  on  the  age  in  a  very  marked  degree 
to  have  deserved  such  a  distinguishing  adjective. 

Though  he  did  not  possess  the  many-sided  mind  so 
characteristic  of  Dunbar,  though  he  was  undoubtedly 
inferior  to  the  latter  in  that  masculine  vigour  of  the  un- 
derstanding and  in  sheer  fertility  of  imagination,  Kennedy 
was  incomparably  a  greater  artist  than  his  friend  and 
rival.  Relatively  speaking,  he  occupied  the  position  of 
Pope  to  Dryden  in  the  hierarchy  of  genius.  '  The  Prais 
oj  Aige  gives  a  favourable  idea  of  Kennedy  as  a  versifier,' 
says  Lord  Hailes  ;  '  his  lines  are  more  polished  than  those 
of  any  of  his  contemporaries.'  As  a  satirist  he  was 
inferior  to  Dunbar  in  piquancy,  aptness  of  allusion,  and 
mordant  vitriolic  sarcasm.  But  his  views  of  life  were  more 
genial  and  more  instinct  with  cheery  bonhomie.  While 
Dunbar  resembled  Juvenal,  Kennedy  rather  owned  Horace 
as  master.  Hence  he  was  more  of  a  humorist  than  a  wit. 
In  pathos  also  he  exhibits  a  tenderer  and  more  genuinely 
sympathetic  touch  than  his  friend,  although  he  never  reached 
the  high-water  mark  of  The  Lament  for  the  Makars. 

But  who  is  he  that  comes  yonder,  attended  by  quite  a 
retinue  of  friends? — a  young  man  of  a  singularly  hand- 
some exterior,  which  his  plain  clerical  garb  cannot  conceal. 
At  once  he  becomes  the  cynosure  of  neighbouring  eyes. 
The  Queen  greets  him  with  marked  favour,  and  he  replies 
to   her   remarks   with   courtly   grace.      The   buzz   of  the 


WILLIAM  DUNBAR  19 

whispering  crowd  conveys   the  intelligence.      The  new- 
comer is  Gavin  Douglas,  in  the  future  to  become  Bishop 
of  Dunkeld,   but  as  yet  only  Rector  of  Prestonkirk  and 
Provost  of  the  Collegiate  Church  of  St.  Giles.     As  a  scion 
of  the  all  but  princely  House  of  Douglas,  however,  and  the 
author   of  a  poem  still  circulating  in  manuscript,  called 
The  Palice  of  Honour,  he  was  nattered  and  caressed  by 
all  the  leading  courtiers  of  the  time.     Born  in  1474,  the 
third  son  of  the  great  Earl  of  Angus,  '  Archibald  Bell-the- 
Cat,'  young  Gavin  graduated  in  St.  Andrews,  then  went 
abroad   to  study  at  Paris.     On  returning  he   commenced 
work   as    a   priest,    and    having   dedicated    his   poem   to 
the    King,  was   appointed   by  him    Provost  of  St.  Giles. 
After  Flodden  his  troubles  began.      The  marriage  of  his 
nephew  with   the  widowed  Queen   blew   into   flame   the 
jealousy  of  all   the   remaining  Scots   nobility  against  the 
Douglases.     On  Gavin  a  share  of  their  malice    fell.      A 
vacancy  occurred   in  the  Archbishopric  of  St.   Andrews, 
and  the  Queen  appointed  the  poet  to  the  primacy,  very 
justly   reasoning    that   his    learning,   his    piety,   and    his 
surpassing  genius  rendered  him  a  suitable  occupant  of  the 
supreme  See.     But  others  disputed   his  claim,  and   even 
expelled  him  from  the  town  of  St.  Andrews.     With  rare 
moderation   in    that   turbulent   age   the    youthful    prelate 
retired  from  the  contest.     Nay,  even  when  he  was  nomi- 
nated to  the  See  of  Dunkeld,  he  only  obtained  possession 
of    it    after    having    suffered    imprisonment    for    having 
obtained  Bulls  of  Confirmation  from  Rome.    On  Albany's 
return  to   the   regency  of  the   kingdom   in  152 1,    he   at 
once  set  himself  to   reduce  the  overgrown  power  of  the 


20  FAMOUS  SCOTS 

Douglases.  All  the  members  of  that  noble  family  had  to 
seek  safety  in  flight.  The  Bishop  of  Dunkeld  repaired  to 
England.  His  high  reputation  as  a  poet  and  a  scholar 
had,  however,  preceded  him,  and  he  experienced  from 
Henry  vm.  a  most  flattering  reception.  Assigned  a 
liberal  pension  by  the  English  monarch,  and  a  palace  in 
the  Savoy  as  his  residence,  Gavin  Douglas  devoted  him- 
self earnestly  to  literature.  He  made  the  acquaintance  of 
Polydore  Vergil,  who  was  then  engaged  on  his  History 
of  England.  To  the  historian  tthe  Bishop  proved  of  great 
assistance  in  correcting  many  of  his  ideas  regarding  North 
Britain.  Vossius  and  Bale  even  go  the  length  of  stating 
he  wrote  a  History  of  Scotland  in  connection  with  Polydore 
Vergil's.  But  of  this  no  trace  can  be  found.  If  it  ever 
existed,  it  probably  shared  the  fate  of  all  mss.  intrusted  to 
that  historian.  While  thus  enjoying  his  learned  leisure  he 
was  cut  off  by  fever  in  1522,  in  the  forty-eighth  year  of 
his  age. 

The  fame  of  Gavin  Douglas  as  a  poet  rests  on  his  fine 
poem  The  Palice  of  Honour.  Written  when  he  was  but 
a  young  man,  it  has  all  the  fire  and  warm,  sensuous  glow  of 
youth,  united  to  a  piety  as  rare  as  it  was  humble.  In  Gavin 
Douglas,  more  than  in  any  of  his  contemporaries,  we  see 
the  love  of  external  nature  predominating.  His  fancy 
revels  in  a  prodigious  wealth  of  images  drawn  from  the 
scenes  amidst  which  he  lived.  He  was  the  poet  of  the 
country,  as  Dunbar  was  the  bard  of  the  town.  As  Dr. 
Irving  remarks  in  his  Lives  of  the  Scottish  Poets,  'his 
writings  present  us  with  constant  evidences  of  a  prolific 
and  exuberant  imagination  ;  and  his  very  faults  are  those 


WILLIAM  DUNBAR  21 

of  superabundance  rather  than  deficiency.  The  beauties 
of  external  nature  he  seems  to  have  surveyed  with  the  eyes 
of  a  poet ;  the  various  aspects  of  human  life  with  those  of 
a  philosopher.'  While  he  altogether  lacks  the  soaring 
sublimity  of  Dunbar,  and  the  artistic  finish  of  Kennedy, 
he  surpasses  both  in  his  amatory  warmth  and  his  love  of 
his  fellows.  He  is  dainty  rather  than  strong,  and  more 
quaint  and  versatile  than  profound.  His  King  Hart  and 
his  Palice  of  Honour  will  long  be  read  for  their  pleasing 
pictures  of  rural  scenery  and  country  life,  but  we  look  in 
vain  in  them  for  the  mighty,  robust  strength  of  Dunbar 
or  the  polished  excellence  of  'gude  Maister  Kennedy.' 
During  the  reign  of  James  iv.  the  poet  was  probably  the 
most  popular  singer  of  the  four,  but  that  was  less  due  to 
his  gifts  of  genius  than  to  his  graces  of  person  and  of 
manner,  his  strong,  unbending  integrity,  and  his  unfeigned 
piety. 

His  liberal-mindedness  and  toleration  is  worthy  of  all 
praise,  and  stands  out  with  brilliant  lustre  in  an  age  when 
it  was  as  rare  as  the  phoenix.  His  remark  regarding  the 
burning  of  heretics,  though  it  commends  itself  to  modern 
ideas,  undoubtedly  was  the  cause  of  much  of  the  clerical 
hostility  wherewith  he  was  pursued  even  to  his  dying  day. 
'  Marry,'  said  he,  '  where  is  the  use  of  tainting  our  swete 
aire  with  the  roasting  of  heretics,  when  they  will  be 
roasting  in  hell-fire  soon  enough  to  satisfy  the  most 
impatient  of  us?'  The  remark,  also,  to  Beaton,  Arch- 
bishop of  Glasgow,  when  Gavin  Douglas  appealed  to  that 
prelate  to  stay  the  adherents  of  the  Earl  of  Arran  from 
attempting  to  apprehend  the  Earl  of  Angus,  shows  him  to 


22  FAMOUS  SCOTS 

have  possessed  a  keen  sense  of  humour.  Beaton  protested 
his  inability  to  influence  Arran,  as  he  was  ignorant  of  his 
designs,  and  thereupon  proceeded  to  strengthen  his  asser- 
tion with  an  oath.  Striking  his  right  hand  against  his 
breast,  he  cried :  '  Upon  my  conscience,  my  Lord  Bishop  of 
Dunkeld,  I  can  do  nothing.'  Immediately  thereafter  the 
jingling  sound  which  followed  this  action  disclosed  the 
fact  to  Douglas  that  Beaton  wore  a  coat  of  mail  beneath 
his  clerical  habit.  'Methinks,  my  Lord,'  retorted  the 
other  dryly,  '  your  conscience  is  in  a  parlous  case,  for  I 
perceive  it  clatters.' 

The  translation  which  he  made  into  English  verse  of 
several  of  the  books  of  Vergil's  sEneid  is  a  testimony  to  his 
merits  at  once  as  a  scholar  and  a  poet.  For  faithful 
reproduction  of  the  original  he  is  superior  to  Dryden, 
though,  of  course,  he  lacks  the  stately  diction  of  the 
author  of  Absalom  and  Achitophel. 

Such,  then,  were  the  four  great  Court  singers  of  the  last 
decade  of  the  reign  of  James  iv.  of  Scotland.  The  names 
of  others  occur,  such  as  those  mentioned  in  the  Lament  for 
the  Makars  and  elsewhere,  but  they  are  little  more  than 
empty  '  shadows  cast  on  the  background  of  Time.' 
Sir  David  Lyndsay  of  the  Mount,  as  a  poet,  belongs  to 
the  succeeding  reign.  The  four  named  above  were  beyond 
all  question  the  'singers'  who,  in  the  reign  of  'Merry 
King  Jamie,'  cast  such  lustre  on  the  Scottish  Court  that 
in  England  the  saying  passed  current  that  the  Muses 
had  deserted  the  fields  of  '  Mirry  Ingelonde'  and  taken 
up  their  abode  amid  the  heath-clad  mountains  of  'Snell 
Scotland.' 


CHAPTER  II 

BIRTH  :  PARENTAGE  AND  EARLY  YEARS 

The  precise  date  of  William  Dunbar's  birth  is  wrapped 
in  uncertainty.  However,  in  the  ancient  registers  of  the 
University  of  St.  Andrews,  in  the  year  1477,  we  note 
the  entry  of  the  name  of  William  Dunbar  among  the 
Determinantes  of  St.  Salvator's  College.  As  an  academic 
degree,  this  corresponded  to  our  Bachelorship  of  Arts, 
and  students  were  not  eligible  for  it  until  the  third  year  of 
their  studies  at  College.1  This  fact,  therefore,  establishes 
the  exact  time  when  he  entered  College  as  1475,  and  as 
Schipper  adroitly  notes  it  is  unlikely  in  those  days  he 
would  do  so  before  his  fifteenth  or  sixteenth  year,  we 
therefore  reach  the  date  1460  as  the  approximate  year  at 
least  of  his  birth.2 

Of  his  parentage  and  family  the  same  uncertainty  must 
be  affirmed.  Though  the  name  of  Dunbar  and  of  that 
frowning  fortress  which  of  old  crowned  the  beetling  cliff 
looking  seaward  towards  'the  May,'  have  been  familiar 
enough  in  Scots  history,   the  latter  for  that  magnificent 

1  David  Laing's  Life  of  Dunbar. 

2  William  Dunbar :  Sein  Leben  und  seine  gcdichte,  von  Dr.  J.  Schipper, 
Professor  der  Englischen  Philologie  an  dcr  Universitdt  in  Wien.  Berlin, 
1884. 

23 


24  FAMOUS  SCOTS 

defence  of  it  by  '  Black  Agnes,'  Countess  of  Dunbar  and 
March,  still  the  difficulty  is  to  connect  our  poet  directly 
with  the  family.  That  he  was  a  distant  kinsman  is  beyond 
a  doubt,  for  in  the  Flyting  between  Dunbar  and  Kennedy 
the  latter  speaks  of  his  poetical  antagonist's  '  forebears,'  or 
ancestors,  as  belonging  to  '  Cospatrick's  clan,'  which  had  at 
an  earlier  day  'brought  Scotland  into  confusion'  by  joining 
themselves  to  the  English  faction  in  the  long  wars  between 
the  two  kingdoms.  He  likewise  deduces,  in  the  most 
direct  terms,  as  Laing  points  out,  the  poet's  descent  from 
the  attainted  Earls  of  March,  while  he  as  expressly  denies 
his  connection  with  the  branch  of  the  family  created  Earls 
of  Moray,  or  with  the  Dunbars  of  Westfield,  the  male 
descendants  of  the  last  Earl  of  Moray. 

From  the  poet's  own  testimony  it  is  known  that  he  was  a 
native  of  East  Lothian,  his  father  being  a  younger  son  of 
Sir  Patrick  Dunbar  of  Beil,  who  was  one  of  the  hostages 
for  the  ransom  of  King  James  i.  in  1426.  From  a  charter 
now  in  the  muniment  chest  of  the  Earl  of  Rosebery,  and 
dated  August  10th,  1440,  we  note  that  one  of  his  sons  was 
named  William.  This  Laing  considers  to  have  been  either 
the  father  or  the  uncle  of  the  poet.  From  a  chance 
reference  in  an  old  Latin  deed  contained  in  the  Chart 
Book  of  the  Priory  of  St  Andrews}  which  I  stumbled  upon 
when  investigating  another  point,  I  am  inclined  to  think 
that  his  father's  name  was  also  William,  and  that  he  held 
some  lay  office  in  connection  with  the  famous  'Lamp 
of  Lothian,'  otherwise  the  Franciscan  Monastery  of 
Haddington.      That  Dunbar  was  born  in  the  vicinity  of 

1  Liber  Cartarum  Prioratus  Saudi  Andree  in  Scotia. 


WILLIAM  DUNBAR  25 

some  magnificent  ecclesiastical  establishment  is,  I  think, 
rendered  strongly  probable  from  those  lines — 

'  I  was  in  youth  on  nurse's  knee 
"  Dandely,  bischop,  dandely," 
And  when  that  age  now  does  me  greif 
Ane  simple  Vicar  I  can  not  be. 
Excess  of  thought  does  me  mischief.' 

His  prospects  owing  to  his  family  connections  were  so 
golden  that  they  seemed  to  betoken  in  the  future  nothing 
less  than  a  bishopric.  Now,  in  order  to  achieve  this  he 
must  have  had  family  associations  with  some  religious 
establishment  so  near  as  to  suggest  the  allusion.  His 
unmistakable  references  to  his  '  Lothian  extraction,'  to 
localities  in  East  Lothian,  as  well  as  Kennedy's  sarcastic 
remarks  in  the  Flyting,  all  go  to  render  the  hypothesis  at 
least  probable  that  the  district  around  Haddington  was  the 
spot  where  Dunbar  first  saw  the  light. 

Furthermore,  from  the  internal  evidence  furnished  by  his 
poems  I  am  inclined  to  think  that,  after  receiving  the 
rudiments  of  education  at  Haddington,  he  was  sent  to 
Edinburgh  before  proceeding  to  St.  Andrews.  The  Fran- 
ciscans, otherwise  the  Mendicant  or  Grey  Friars,  had  a 
famous  establishment  in  the  capital,  viz.  the  Monastery  of 
the  Observantines,  situate  on  the  ground  now  occupied  by 
Greyfriars  Churchyard.  Thither  Dunbar  would  naturally 
be  sent  from  the  sister  Monastery  in  Haddington,  to  be 
further  trained  in  the  higher  branches  of  letters.  The 
School  of  the  Observantines  in  Edinburgh  was  justly  cele- 
brated at  a  time  when  good  teachers  were  scarce. 

The  character  of  a  lad's  education  in  those  days,  and 


26  FAMOUS  SCOTS 

more  particularly  of  a  lad  destined  for  the  clerical  pro- 
fession, and  coming  moreover  of  an  ancient  and  honour- 
able family,  was  by  no  means  so  meagre  as  we  are  apt  to 
suppose.  The  course  is  detailed  for  us  by  both  Buchanan 
and  Knox,  whose  prejudices  would  certainly  not  run  in  the 
direction  of  undue  praise.  The  Schools  of  the  Francis- 
cans, Dominicans,  and  Benedictines  were  regarded  as  true 
nurseries  of  learning.  Latin  was  thoroughly  taught,  as  also 
the  rudiments  of  Grammar,  Rhetoric,  Logic,  Arithmetic, 
Geometry,  Astronomy,  Music,  and  Theology — to  which  was 
added  French.  While  the  curriculum  in  question  was  but 
an  expansion  of  the  subjects  embraced  in  the  Trivium  and 
Quadriviiim  of  the  Middle  Ages,  there  can  be  no  question 
that  the  system  was  thorough  when  it  could  produce  such 
polymaths  as  Buchanan,  Andrew  Melville,  and  my  own 
ancestor,  Thomas  Smeaton,  Principal  of  Glasgow  Uni- 
versity in  1580. 

Dunbar  appears  to  have  made  good  use  of  his  early 
opportunities.  There  are  certain  subjects  only  to  be  ac- 
quired by  that  steady  drudgery  for  which  youth  alone  is  the 
season  when  it  can  be  undertaken.  Dunbar,  in  after  life, 
by  the  accuracy  of  his  scholarship,  and  the  solid  massive- 
ness  of  his  general  knowledge,  offered  the  best  proof  that 
could  be  afforded  of  his  early  industry.  Unfortunately  of 
his  school  life  we  have  no  details.  In  the  school  of  the 
Observantines  there  was  one  peerless  Latinist,  John  Leyrva, 
a  Lombard,  whose  personality  has  been  but  a  shadowy  one 
until  recent  discoveries  have  proved  that  the  supposed 
coterie  of  great  Franciscan  scholars  in  the  Edinburgh  of  the 
fifteenth  century  was  in  reality  but  the  different  designations 


WILLIAM  DUNBAR  27 

of  this  one  brilliant  genius.  That  Dunbar  was  one  of 
Leyrva's  pupils  is  more  than  probable,  particularly  as  the 
latter,  when  he  returned  to  Italy,  mentioned  in  one  of  his 
sonnets  a  Gulielmus  Donbar  as  being  '  carissimus  dis- 
cipidusque  amicus? 

From  the  School  of  the  Observantines  William  Dunbar 
would  carry  away  more  of  secular  than  of  sacred  learning. 
In  his  case,  as  in  that  of  many  others,  the  mistake  was 
committed  of  attempting  to  force  the  square  block  into 
the  round  hole.  A  nature  full  of  warm  human  affections, 
incapable,  in  his  earlier  years  at  least,  of  finding  interest 
and  solace  in  topics  purely  spiritual — intensely  human,  in 
fact,  and  relishing  with  a  sort  of  fierce  defiance  all  the 
pleasures  of  life  which,  as  a  Churchman,  he  should  have 
abjured;  a  lusciously  sensuous  temperament,  fond  of 
everything  that  appealed  to  the  innate  sense  of  artistic 
beauty  within — costly  clothing,  elegant  furnishings,  beauti- 
ful women,  splendidly  ornate  architecture,  and  an  ecclesi- 
astical ritual  as  superbly  spectacular  in  its  appeals  to  the 
eye  and  ear  as  it  was  superlatively  destitute  of  any  element 
capable  of  touching  the  heart : — such  was  the  youthful 
William  Dunbar.  Had  his  desires  been  consulted  in  the 
choice  of  vocation,  in  place  of  becoming  a  shaveling  '  ready 
all  men  to  beguile,' l  despite  all  his  supposed  family  interest, 
he  would  have  elected  to  be  a  belted  knight  gaily  tilting  in 
the  jousting  lists  for  a  smile  from  some  fair  Queen  of 
Beauty,  or  joining  in  some  headlong  raid  across  the  Border 
to  perpetuate  the  hereditary  feud  between  the  two  nations. 
Dunbar  never  should  have  been  a  churchman,  and  unless 

1    Visitation  of  St.  Francis,  line  45. 


28  FAMOUS  SCOTS 

one  realises  this  prime  fact,  the  key  to  his  character  is 
lacking. 

Our  next  authentic  landmark  in  the  life  of  our  great 
Scots  poet  is  associated  with  his  residence  at  St.  Andrews. 
The  boy  would  naturally  pass  from  Grammar  School  to 
College.  At  that  time,  in  Scotland,  there  were  only  two 
Universities x  capable  of  affording  anything  approaching 
advanced  intellectual  training  to  the  numbers  of  brilliant 
young  Scotsmen  who  were  already  becoming  infected  with 
the  mental  activity  of  the  period — the  faintly  eddying  back- 
wash of  that  Renaissance  tide  of  culture  which,  as  we  have 
already  noted,  reached  England  through  Colet,  Grocyn, 
and  Linacre,  and  was  yet  to  influence  Scotland  in  greater 
measure  in  days  to  come. 

But  in  1475,  when  William  Dunbar  is  supposed  to  have 
entered  the  University  of  St.  Andrews,  the  latter  had  been 
nominally  in  existence  for  sixty-four  years — 141 1  being  the 
date  of  its  foundation  by  Bishop  Wardlaw  of  that  diocese, 
with  the  express  consent  embodied  in  a  Bull  of  Pope 
Benedict  xm.  In  Dunbar's  day,  one  only  of  the  three 
Colleges  afterwards  comprising  it  was  in  existence,  viz. 
St.  Salvator's,  founded  in  1458  by  that  'father  of  Scots 
letters,'  Bishop  Kennedy.  For  seventeen  years  the 
academic  machinery  had  been  in  operation,  and  from  con- 
temporary testimony  we  learn  had  been  working  satis- 
factorily. When  Dunbar  entered  among  the  Bq/ans,  or 
first-year's  students,  the  teaching  staff  of  the  College  was 
distributed  through  three  faculties,  viz.  Arts,  Theology, 
and  Canon  Law.      The  Professors,  or  Regents,  as  they 

1  Aberdeen  was  not  yet  founded. 


WILLIAM  DUNBAR  29 

were  termed,  were  not  set  apart  for  the  teaching  of  any 
specific  subject.  They  carried  their  students  on  through- 
out all  the  three  years  of  their  academic  residence,  in- 
structing them  in  each  one  of  the  subjects  falling  within 
the  curriculum.  These,  however,  were  the  days  when 
it  was  still  possible  for  a  man  to  master  the  entire 
gamut  of  the  arts  and  sciences,  and  pose  as  a  full- 
blown polymath.  Buchanan,  Andrew  Melville,  the  Sca- 
ligers,  Erasmus,  the  Admirable  Crichton,  and  others,  were 
men  who  actually  had  mastered  the  whole  round  of  letters. 
That  we  are  in  absolute  ignorance  both  as  to  the  names 
of  our  poet's  preceptors  during  those  years  of  intellectual 
germination,  also  that  we  know  next  to  nothing  positively 
of  the  books  read  by  our  keen-witted  'child  of  the  Muses,' 
is  deeply  to  be  regretted.  Only  by  analogy  can  we  shadow 
forth  the  course  pursued.  It  is  well  known  that,  in  his 
Buke  of  Discipline,  Knox,  while  eradicating  what  he 
considered  to  be  the  errors  of  Romanism,  was  content  to 
leave  the  Colleges  very  much  as  he  found  them,  in  which 
state  they  remained  until  reorganised  by  Principals  Andrew 
Melville  and  Thomas  Smeaton  about  1579-80.  James 
Melville  alludes  to  this  matter  in  his  Diary,1  and  to  the 
anxiety  of  his  uncle  and  Smeaton  for  the  acceptance  of 
the  new  constitution  of  the  Colleges.  M'Crie  in  his  Life 
of  Melville  also  indicates  that  the  latter  had  found  the 
Universities  in  their  pre-Reformation  state,2  and  the  new 
Constitution 3  expressly  states  that  the  reform  was  intended 

1  Autobiography  and  Diary  of  fames  Melville  ;  Wodrow  Society  Pub- 
lications. 

2  Life  of  Andrew  Melville,  by  Thomas  M'Crie,  D.D. 

3  Acts  of  the  Parliaments  of  Scotland,  vol.  iii.  pp.  178-182. 


30  FAMOUS  SCOTS 

to  expel  the  Papistical  remnants  which  still  clung  to  the 
academic  system  of  St.  Andrews. 

This  being  so,  the  account  which  John  Knox  gives  in 
the  Buke  of  Discipline 1  of  the  '  course '  followed  in  the 
'  Universitie  of  Sanctandrois '  may  be  accepted  as  showing 
very  closely,  albeit  after  a  lapse  of  eighty  years,  what  was 
the  '  academic  custom '  or  curriculum  in  the  oldest  of  the 
Scots  seats  of  learning.  Let  us  cite  the  entire  passage 
from  Knox,  remembering  that  the  course  of  study  in  the 
first  and  second  Colleges  were  unitedly  analogous  to  the 
curriculum  in  Dunbar's  days :  '  In  the  first  Universitie 
and  principall  whiche  is  Sanctandrois,  thair  be  thre  Col- 
ledgeis.  And  in  the  first  Colledge,  quhilk  is  the  entre  of 
the  Universitie,  there  be  four  classes  or  seigeis ;  the  first 
to  the  new  Suppostis,  shalbe  onlie  Dialectique;  the  next 
only  Mathematique,  the  thrid  of  Phisick  only,  the  fourt 
of  Medicyne.  And  in  the  second  Colledge  twa  classes  or 
seigeis;  the  first  in  Morall  Philosophic,  the  Secound  in  the 
Lawis.  .  .  .  Item,  in  the  first  College  and  in  the  first  classe 
shall  be  ane  Reidar  of  Dialectique,  wha  shall  accom- 
plische  his  course  hereof  in  one  yeare.  In  the  Mathe- 
matique which  is  the  second  classe,  shalbe  ane  Reidar 
who  shall  compleit  his  course  of  Arithmetique,  Geometrie, 
Cosmographie,  and  Astrologie  in  ane  yeare.  In  the  third 
classe,  shalbe  ane  Reidar  of  Naturall  Philosophic,  who 
shall  compleit  his  course  in  a  year.  And  wha  efter  ther 
thre  yearis  by  tryell  and  Examinatioun  shall  be  fund 
sufficiently   instructit   in   thir   aforesaid    Sciences,    shallbe 

1  Knox's  Buke  of  Discipline,  MS.  1566,  Wodrow  Society  Publications, 
Section  iii.,  'The  Ercctioun  of  Universiteis. ' 


WILLIAM  DUNBAR  31 

Laureat  and  Graduat  in  Philosophic  Item  in  the  Secound 
Colledge,  in  the  first  classe,  one  Reidar  onlie  in  the 
Ethicques,  (Economicques,  and  Politiques,  who  shall  com- 
pleit  his  course  in  the  space  of  one  yeare.' 

From  these  extracts  we  gain  an  idea  what  the  University 
must  have  been  in  Dunbar's  days,  and  what  the  course 
of  study  to  which  he  would  be  required  to  subject 
himself. 

The  authentic  facts  of  our  poet's  academic  years  are, 
however,  of  the  meagrest  description.  These  have  been 
already  recorded,  viz.  that  under  the  date  1477  among 
the  Determinantes  or  Bachelors  of  Arts  of  St.  Salvator's 
College  appears  the  name  Guliehnus  Donbar;1  while  in 
1479  it  again  occurs  amongst  those  that  have  taken  the 
degree  of  Master  of  Arts.  On  this  point  Laing  aptly 
remarks :  '  He  is  uniformly  styled  Maister  William 
Dunbar,  this  designation  till  a  late  period  being  exclu- 
sively appropriated  to  persons  who  had  taken  that  degree 
at  some  University.' 2 

That  the  standard  of  education  at  St.  Andrews  during  the 
years  of  Dunbar's  residence  was  regarded  as  high  by  com- 
petent extramural  judges  is  proved  by  a  curious  side-light, 
whose  assistance  we  obtain  from  a  rare  tract  to  which 
it  is  expedient  to  call  attention.  Jaspar  Laet  de  Borch- 
loen,  the  author  of  De  Eclipsi  Solis  Anni  M.cccc.xci,  cur- 
rentis,  Octava  die  Mali  Pronostiatm,  dedicated  it  to  William 
Schevez,  Archbishop  of  St.  Andrews  from  1477  to  1497. 
He  praises  the  latter  for  his  vast  researches  in  the  fields 

1  Acta  Facultatis  Artium  S.  Andreae. 
-  Memoirs  of  William  Dunbar. 


32  FAMOUS  SCOTS 

of  sacred  literature  and  pontifical  law,  and  then  adds  a 
warm  eulogy  upon  him  for  his  unwearied  efforts  to  advance 
the  cause  of  learning  and  science  in  the  University.  Here 
was  one  individual  at  least  with  whom  Dunbar  must  have 
had  some  relations,  both  pleasant  and  profitable,  and  I 
have  little  doubt  that  the  poet  placed  on  record  his 
obligations  to  the  great  prelate  in  those  two  pieces,  The 
Manner  of  Passing  to  Confession  and  The  Table  of 
Confession,  where  the  soaring  genius  of  Dunbar  rises  to 
an  altitude  of  true  sublimity  only  paralleled  by  the  great 
Satanic  soliloquies  in  Milton. 

I  have  always  entertained  the  opinion  that  after  gradu- 
ating at  St.  Andrews  in  1479  Dunbar  visited  the  Univer- 
sities of  Oxford  and  Paris.  His  exquisite  little  poem  on 
'Learning  Vain  without  Guid  Lyfe'  is  stated  in  the 
colophon  to  be  written  at  Oxinfurde.  The  whole  'atmo- 
sphere '  of  the  piece,  moreover,  is  academically  didactic — 

'  To  speak  of  science,  craft,  or  sapience, 
Of  virtue,  moral  cunnying,  or  doctrine  ; 
Of  Jure,  of  wisdom,  or  intelligence  ; 
Of  every  study,  lear,  or  discipline  ; 
All  is  but  tint,  or  ready  for  to  tyne  : 
The  curious  probation  logicall ; 
The  eloquence  of  ornate  rhetoric  ; 
The  natural  Science  philosophical ; 
The  dirk  appearance  of  Astronomie  ; 
The  Theologis  sermoun,  the  fables  of  Poetrie  : 
Without  Guid  Lyfe  all  in  the  self  does  dee.' 

Besides,  the  poem  as  a  whole  is  evidently  suggested  by 
the  custom  of  public  disputation,  which  was  so  marked 
a  feature  in  English  University  life,  and  which  the  poet 
would  like  to   see  introduced  into   the   Scots  academic 


WILLIAM  DUNBAR  33 

system.  This,  to  my  mind,  is  the  meaning  of  the  third 
stanza,  beginning — 

'Wherefore,  ye  Clerks  greatest  of  Constance, 
To  us  be  mirrors  in  your  governance,' 

and  the  point  is  interesting  as  explaining  what  hitherto 
has  been  a  puzzle  to  students  of  the  poet — the  purity  of 
his  Anglo-Saxon  vocabulary.1  Furthermore  with  regard 
to  his  studying  at  the  University  of  Paris,  although  to 
Laing  belongs  the  credit  of  having  thrown  out  the  tenta- 
tive suggestion  that  the  poet  studied  at  Paris,2  no  definite 
settlement  of  the  question  could  be  arrived  at  until,  after 
careful  inspection  of  the  registers  of  the  old  University  of 
Paris,  the  name  of  '  Gul  Donbere '  was  discovered,  which 
I  have  little  doubt  refers  to  the  poet.  This  fact  would 
seem  to  indicate  that  Dunbar  resided  in  Paris  in  1480-81, 
or  during  parts  thereof.  At  any  rate  a  reasonable  ex- 
planation has  now  been  formulated  01  Dunbar's  intimate 
knowledge  of  French — so  intimate  indeed  as  to  warrant 
his  appointment  as  Secretary  and  Interpreter  to  the  various 
embassies  despatched  by  James  iv.  to  the  French  Court 
to  promote  his  manifold  matrimonial  schemes.  Dunbar, 
both  at  Oxford  and  Paris,  had  been  patiently  laying  the 
foundations  of  that  broad  catholic  culture  which  was  to 
render  him,  before  many  years  were  over,  the  most  accom- 
plished scholar  of  that  brilliant  band  which  circled  round 
the  fourth  James  at  Holyrood  or  at  Falkland. 

All  this  period  of  Dunbar's  life,  however,  has  simply 
to  be  pieced  together  by  a  sort  of  hypothetical  literary 
synthesis  resulting  from   the  comparison  of  probabilities. 

1  Cf.  Schipper  and  Laing.  -  Cf.  Laing,  Memoirs,  p.  10. 

C 


34  FAMOUS  SCOTS 

After  some  time,  profitably  enough  spent,  doubtless,  at 
Oxford  and  Paris,  he  probably  returned  to  Edinburgh  and 
resumed  his  theological  studies  in  the  Schools  of  the 
Observantine  Franciscans.  At  least  we  gather  as  much 
from  his  poems l  when  he  relates  that  he,  as  a  friar  of  that 
Order, 

'  into  every  lusty  toun  and  place, 
Of  all  England  from  Berwick  to  Calais, 
I  have  into  thy  habit  made  good  cheer.' 

But,  as  is  well  known  by  every  good  Catholic,  the  Fran- 
ciscans declined  to  allow  any  one  to  become  a  preaching 
friar  who  had  not  been  trained  in  their  own  schools  in 
theology.  That  Dunbar  was  a  member  of  that  Order  we 
learn  from  his  own  express  testimony.  We  also  know 
that  he  was  trained  in  theology  in  Edinburgh,  as  is  implied 
by  one  of  the  passages  in  the  Flyti?ig?  Only  one  con- 
clusion is,  therefore,  left :  that  our  great  national  poet  was 
trained  in  theology  in  the  Schools  of  the  Observantines. 

1  The  Visitation  of  St.  Francis. 

2  Flyting  between  Dicnbar  and  Kennedy. 


CHAPTER   III 

LIFE    AS  A    FRIAR  :    DISGUST   WITH    CLERICALISM 

About  the  year  1483,  when  Dunbar  must  have  reached  his 
twenty-third  year,  the  battle  of  life  for  him  may  be  said  to 
have  commenced.  He  had  received  a  careful  scholastic 
and  academic  education,  he  had  enjoyed  the  special 
privilege  of  a  sound  theological  training  by  that  Order  of 
Friars  which  more  than  any  of  the  others  was  distinguished 
by  learning,  piety,  and  good  works.  Now  had  come  that 
Rubicon  of  life  which  by  all  of  us  must  sooner  or  later  be 
crossed — the  choice  of  a  profession.  In  Dunbar's  case 
probably  there  was  but  little  room  for  choice.  To  a 
younger  son  of  the  house  of  Biel  the  cowl  was  the  only 
alternative  to  the  sword.  The  other  learned  professions 
did  not  then  exist  in  Scotland.  Not  until  the  27th  May 
1532  was  the  Scots  College  of  Justice  instituted  by 
James  v.  in  the  old  Tolbooth — an  historic  scene  which,  as  is 
well  known,  forms  the  subject  of  the  magnificent  window  in 
the  present  Parliament  House,  Edinburgh.  Accordingly, 
the  Bar  did  not  afford  any  scope  for  his  great  talents.  Nor 
was  Medicine  in  a  condition  very  much  better.  A  doctor 
in  nine  cases  out  of  ten  was  identified  with  the  ignorant 
quacks  who  called  themselves  'barber  surgeons.'     Those 

35 


36  FAMOUS  SCOTS 

who  belonged  to  a  higher  grade  had  all  to  study  either  at 

Paris  or 

'  In  Padua,  far  beyond  the  sea.' 

That  of  course  entailed  an  expense  and  hardship  the  former 
of  which  Dunbar's  family  was  unable  to  face,  while  from  the 
latter  his  own  hedonistic  pleasure-loving  nature  decidedly 
shrank.  Than  the  Church,  therefore,  there  was  no  alternative 
for  Dunbar.  From  an  early  age  indeed  he  appears  to  have 
practically  resigned  himself  to  the  inevitable.  In  more  than 
one  of  his  poems  he  somewhat  sadly  recalls  his  boyhood's 
dreams,  when  a  life  on  the  tented  field,  and  amid  the  clash 
of  martial  weapons,  presented  prospects  to  him  of  the  most 
alluring  kind.  But  with  years  came  the  realisation  of  that 
crushing  fact,  sooner  or  later  to  be  learned  by  us  all  in 
the  hard  school  of  experience,  that  our  individual  desires 
obtain  gratification  in  almost  exactly  inverse  proportion  to 
their  intensity.  To  the  wishes  of  his  family  he  probably 
bowed,  and  prepared  to  enter  that  stately  and  magnificent 
organisation,  which,  with  all  its  corruptions  and  short- 
comings, as  a  civilising  agency  in  the  diffusion  of  culture 
and  intellectual  light  has  done  so  much.1 

To  the  youthful  Dunbar,  approaching  the  priesthood  of 
the  great  Hierarchy  in  question,  there  must  have  been 
many  solemn  and  soul-hallowing  thoughts.  That  Rome  at 
her  best  has  produced  some  of  the  very  noblest  men  that 
have  adorned  the  bead-roll  of  the  world's  fame  cannot  be 
questioned.  An  Augustine,  a  Bede,  an  Alcuin,  a  Bernard 
of  Clairvaux,  and  a  Bernard  of  Cluny,  a  Thomas  a  Kempis, 
and  others,  must  have  been  greatly  good  as  well  as  grandly 

1  Newman,  Apologia  pro  sua  Vita. 


WILLIAM  DUNBAR  37 

great.  Young  Dunbar  doubtless  felt  all  the  impressive 
influence  of  these  mighty  personalities,  stirring  up  within 
him  the  desire  to  imitate,  where  he  could  not  emulate. 
What  noble-hearted  young  man  at  the  outset  of  life  has 
not  felt  the  same  ?  We  ought  not  to  be  the  '  dumb,  driven 
cattle '  of  circumstances,  but  live  in  the  glorious  light  of 
hopeful  opportunities,  making  each  circumstance  a  carrier 
to  bear  us  onward  to  something  higher.  Not  as  machines 
or  as  automata,  but  as  reason-crowned  mortals  capable  of 
influencing  Destiny  as  much  as  Destiny  influences  us — 
such  is  the  attitude  of  mind  of  any  man  who  has  risen  to 
eminence  by  breaking  the  chains  binding  him  to  precedent, 
and  such  was  Dunbar's  mental  attitude  when  he  wrote 
those  inspired  religious  poems  of  his  upon  The  Nativity 
and  Passion  of  Christ,  and  one  or  two  others.  I  like  to 
think  that  our  great  poet  wrote  at  least  some  of  these 
between  his  twenty-fourth  and  thirtieth  years.  Of  youth 
and  immaturity  they  exhibit  some  signs,  but  all  the  rich, 
warm  glow  of  early  enthusiasm,  before  contact  with  the 
world  had  chilled  it  with  the  frost  of  sarcasm  and  the  icy 
breath  of  indifference,  is  there  present,  united  to  that 
sensuously  splendid  picturesqueness  of  description,  in 
which  particular  the  early  poems  of  Dunbar  are  still 
peerless  in  English  literature.  Only  a  young  man 
addressing  the  young  would  suddenly  break  into  this 
apostrophe  at  the  close  of  a  lofty  and  sublime  piece  of 
poetic  rhetoric — 

'  I  red  thee,  man,  while  thou  art  stark  and  young, 
With  pith  and  strength  into  thy  yearis  grene, 
While  thou  art  able  baith  in  mind  and  tongue, 


38  FAMOUS  SCOTS 

Repent  thee,  man,  and  keep  thy  conscience  clean  ; 

To  bide  till  age  has  mony  perils  seen : 

Small  merit  is  for  sinis  for  to  irk, 

When  thou  are  auld  and  may  na  wrongis  work.' ' 

It  is  like  the  personal  application  of  a  rousing  evangelical 
sermon. 

To  the  priesthood,  therefore,  Dunbar  advanced,  imbued 
with  lofty  sentiments  regarding  the  dignity  and  holiness  of 
the  office,  and  the  opportunities  for  doing  good  which  the 
position  of  a  '  preaching  friar '  afforded  him.  The  poetry 
we  believe  to  have  been  his  earliest,  viz.  one  or  two  of  his 
religious  pieces,  are  filled  with  expressions  how  deeply  he 
felt  his  own  unfitness  for  the  holy  office.  In  The  Table  of 
Confession  we  obtain  a  glimpse  of  his  self-abasement  even 
after  we  have  discounted  the  strong  stock  terms  wherewith 
the  rubric  enjoins  that  the  duty  should  be  performed. 
Dunbar  in  youth  was  undoubtedly  a  deeply  religious  man. 
Alas  that  the  scenes  he  witnessed  within  the  pale  of  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church  of  the  fifteenth  century  should 
have  undermined  his  piety  ! 

After  he  donned  the  habit  of  a  preaching  friar,  Dunbar 
states 2  that  he  made  good  cheer  in  every  flourishing 
town  in  England  between  Berwick  and  Calais :  in  it,  also, 
he  ascended  the  pulpit  at  Dernton  and  Canterbury ;  nay, 
even  crossed  the  sea  at  Dover  and  instructed  the  inhabi- 
tants of  Picardy.    It  is  doubtless  to  this  period  of  Dunbar's 

1  The  Manner  of  Passing  to  Confession.  My  idea  is  that  Dunbar,  with 
regard  to  many  of  his  religious  pieces,  re-wrote  in  age  what  he  had  roughly 
drafted  in  youth.  The  differences  existing  between  various  versions  of  the 
same  poem  leave  no  other  explanation  open. 

2  Visitation  of  St.  Francis. 


WILLIAM  DUNBAR  39 

life  that  we  must  refer  the  allusion  contained  in  Kennedy's 
portion  of  the  Flyting,  wherein  he  taunts  Dunbar  with  his 
pilgrimage  as  a  pardoner  begging  in  all  the  churches  from 
Ettrick  Forest  to  Dumfries. 

'  From  Ettrick  Forest  furthward  to  Dumfries, 
Thou  beggit  with  ane  pardon  in  all  kirks, 
Collops,  curds,  meal,  groats,  grice  1  and  geese, 
And  under  night  whiles  thou  stole  staigs  2  and  stirks  3 
Because  that  Scotland  of  that  begging  irks 
Thou  shap'st  in  France  to  be  a  knight  of  the  field, 
Thou  hast  thy  clam  shells,4  and  thy  burdoun5  keild6 
Unhonest  ways  all,  wolroun,  that  thou  works.7 

The  deceptions  practised  by  the  friars  on  the  poor  and 
ignorant,  as  well  as  the  mournful  difference  between  his 
ideal  of  the  priesthood  and  the  reality,  led  him  after  some 
years'  experience  of  it  to  long  to  leave  it.  During  his  service 
in  it  he  had  picked  up  a  shrewd,  worldly  wisdom,  a  keen 
knowledge  of  life  and  manners,  and  a  wide  experience  in 
dealing  with  his  fellow-men.  In  after  years  this  knowledge 
was  to  prove  invaluable  to  him.  There  can  be  no  doubt, 
however,  that  the  immediate  effect  of  his  years  of  clerical 
labour  was  a  distinct  lowering  of  his  lofty  religious  ideals. 
He  saw  that,  though  in  the  past  an  exalted  piety  had  been 
the  passport  to  promotion  in  the  Romish  Church,  the 
period  for  that  had  gone  by.  He  noted  that  the  attitude 
of  mind  which  paid  at  that  moment  was  a  sort  of  easy-going 
Epicureanism — neither  looking  too  deep  into  the  distinctive 

1  Pigs.  2  Young  horses.  3  Young  bullocks. 

4  Clam  shells  employed  by  pilgrims  to  place  in  their  hats,  as  denoting 
they  had  been  to  Palestine. — Marmion  I.  xxiii. 

8  Burdoun,  pilgrim's  staff.  «  Keild,  marked  with  ruddle. 

7  From  the  Flyting  between  Dunbar  and  Kennedy. 


4o  FAMOUS  SCOTS 

bearing  of  doctrines  upon  life,  nor  setting  up  too  high  a 
standard  of  piety  as  the  rule  whereby  to  try  his  fellows. 
The  Romish  Church  was  tottering  to  her  fall  both  in 
England  and  Scotland.  Her  clergy  were  timorous  and 
weak,  recognising  that  they  no  longer  maintained  that  hold 
on  the  minds  of  the  people  which  in  past  centuries  had 
been  their  tower  of  strength,  yet  determined  not  to  alter  an 
iota  of  their  faith  or  practice  to  win  them  back.1  The 
people  must  come  to  them,  not  they  go  to  the  people. 
James  iv.  was  too  liberal-minded  a  sovereign  to  be  a  slavish 
supporter  of  the  clergy.  The  consequence  of  this  attitude 
of  secular  eclecticism,  similar  to  that  manifested  by 
Lorenzo  de  Medici  in  Florence,2  was  a  weakening  of  the 
temporal  as  well  as  the  spiritual  power  of  the  Church.  As 
Burton  remarks,  the  discussion  between  the  Papal  Court 
and  the  Estates  of  the  Kingdom  of  Scotland,  with  reference 
to  the  pretensions  of  the  former  to  distribute  all  ecclesias- 
tical patronage  in  the  country,  began  in  the  reign  of  James  iv. 
and  speedily  developed  into  a  bitter  quarrel.3  The  angry 
Statutes  passed  by  the  States  again  and  again  are  sufficient 
proof  how  complete  was  the  undermining  of  the  Church's 
influence  that  had  gone  on.  To  estimate  the  power  of  the 
Romish  Church  in  Scotland  by  the  severity  of  the  measures 
taken  by  theGovernment  against  Lollardry  and  the  Reformed 
beliefs  is  no  fair  criterion.  The  bitterest  enemies  of  Rome 
among  the  nobles,  men  who  openly  professed  their  con- 
tempt for  all  forms  of  worship,  at  once  sided  with  the  faith 

1  Early  Scottish  History  and  Literature,   by   J.   M.    Ross,    chap.    iv. 
p.  123. 

2  Sismondi,  History  of  the  Italian  Republics. 

*  Hill  Burton,  History  0/ Scotland,  vol.  iii.  p.  40. 


WILLIAM  DUNBAR  41 

by  law  established,  when  they  had  to  choose  between 
a  fresh  system  they  knew  not  of,  and  the  doctrines  con- 
secrated to  them  by  centuries  of  service.  To  esteem  the 
Romish  Church  the  stronger,  because  she  was  able  at  the 
outset  to  crush  the  Reformed  doctrines,  is  to  misunderstand 
the  whole  situation.  The  irreligious  nobility  sided  with  Rome, 
because  the  priesthood  of  the  ancient  faith  winked  compla- 
cently at  the  vices  of  the  great,  provided  the  winking  meant 
fat  tithes  and  the  protection  of  the  baron's  arm  in  times 
of  unrest.  For  the  Reformed  faith  inculcated  an  austerity 
of  life  and  morals,  even  on  the  laity,  compared  with  which 
many  of  the  religious  Orders  were  luxurious  and  sybaritic. 
Not  until  the  tempting  bait  of  the  Romish  Church  lands 
was  thrown  into  the  scale  did  the  Scots  baronage  come 
to  the  conclusion  that  Catholicism  was  really  very  unscrip- 
tural  indeed.  As  Henry  iv.  considered  the  crown  of  France 
worth  a  mass,  so  the  Scots  nobles  thought  the  acquisition 
of  the  Church  lands  was  worth,  at  least,  the  trouble  of 
emulating  in  an  ethical  sense  Sir  John  Falstaff's  recipe  to 
'purge  and  leave  sack,  and  live  cleanly  as  a  nobleman 
should  do.' 

The  consciousness  therefore  that  the  Church  had  for 
ever  lost  its  hold  on  the  heart  of  the  people  induced 
Dunbar  to  reconsider  his  resolution  to  live  and  die  a 
Churchman.1  How  long  he  remained  a  priest  is  not  very 
clear,  but  the  period  cannot  have  been  less  than  five  years 
— from  1483  to  1488, — for,  as  we  shall  see  later,  he  was 
employed  on  the  King's  business  in  1489-90.    Only  natural 

1   Vide  Poems  on  Dunbar's  Dream,    The  Devil's  Inquest,    The  Birth 
of  Antichrist,  for  indications  of  his  past  dissatisfaction. 


42  FAMOUS  SCOTS 

was  it  that  his  action  in  turning  his  back  on  his  brethren 
of  the  Observantine  Franciscans  should  have  blown  into 
flame  that  slumbering  jealousy  wherewith  Dunbar  was  ever 
regarded  by  the  Order  whose  habit  he  had  elected  to  wear. 
Again  and  again  in  his  poems  references  occur  to  the 
hatred  wherewith  he  was  pursued  by  the  whole  Scots 
Franciscan  Order,  both  Observantines  and  Conventuals.1 
As  they  were  the  only  Order  the  worldly-minded  King 
patronised — owing  to  the  fact,  as  he  said,  that  their  vow 
of  poverty  precluded  them  from  expecting  much  from 
him,2  this  may  have  accounted  for  his  Majesty's  reluct- 
ance to  promote  Dunbar  to  a  benefice.  The  point  in 
question,  however,  will  be  discussed  hereafter.  Dunbar 
must  have  adopted  the  dress  of  the  secular  clergy  some 
time  in  1488.  It  was  many  years  before  he  again  donned 
the  purely  clerical  robes. 

1  Cf.  the  persecution  of  George  Buchanan  by  the  Franciscans. — Life  of 
Buchanan,  under  years  1537-1550;  also  Besant's  Rabelais,  pp.  16-44. 

2  History  of  Scotland  from  1436  to  1565,  by  Robert  Lindsay  of  Pitscottie. 


CHAPTER  IV 

EARLY  YEARS  OF  STATE  SERVICE 

To  that  period  in  Dunbar's  life  when  he  entered  the 
personal  service  of  James  iv.  we  have  now  come.  He 
was  in  his  thirtieth  year,  and  was  rapidly  approaching 
that  golden  prime  of  the  maturity  of  his  powers — a  prime 
that  was  to  be  so  glorious.  During  his  clerical  career  he 
had  doubtless  made  many  friends,  both  at  Court  and  in 
the  Edinburgh  of  that  day.  Dunbar's  cheerful  bonhomie, 
his  knowledge  of  men  and  manners,  his  manifold  experi- 
ences during  his  years  of  travel,  his  genial  wit  and  humour 
as  well  as  his  sunny,  unconcealed  Epicureanism  and  enjoy- 
ment of  life,  all  combined  to  render  him  one  of  the  most 
charming  of  companions,  as  he  was  one  of  the  most  faith- 
ful of  friends.  The  young  King,  then  only  sixteen,  had 
ascended  the  Scots  throne  in  the  June  of  the  same  year 
in  which  our  poet  put  off  the  clerical  dress.  In  view  of 
subsequent  events,  I  have  always  maintained  that  there 
was  a  connection  between  the  two  occurrences. 

The  closing  years  of  the  third  James's  reign  were  gloom- 
beset  and  disturbed.  The  partiality  he  had  exhibited  for 
unworthy  favourites,  and  the  dislike  to  the  society  of  the 
nobles  of  his  Court,  which  characterised  his  later  years, 
culminated  finally  in  that  civil  war  in  which  the  King  met 

43 


44  FAMOUS  SCOTS 

with  his  death.  But  the  influence  on  Scotland  of  this 
unrest  was  simply  ruinous.1  'There  is  evidence  that 
agriculture  languished,  and  that  grain  had  to  be  imported 
from  England ;  nor  can  we  wonder  at  this  when  we 
remember  the  horrible  and  widespread  devastations  of 
the  century.' 2 

The  accession  of  James  iv.  was  therefore  hailed  on  all 
sides  as  being  the  commencement  of  a  new  era  of  peace, 
plenty,  and  prosperity.  Men's  minds  were  weary  of  an- 
archy. They  longed  for  tranquillity.  Only  the  strong 
arm  of  a  capable  monarch  was  needed  to  lay  Scotland  at 
his  feet  in  a  manner  never  before  witnessed  in  the  history 
of  the  country,  because  he  would  receive  the  support  of 
all  sections  of  the  community.  That  strong  monarch  was 
found  in  James  iv.,  but  the  supreme  success  of  his  rule 
was  due  as  much  to  the  change  coming  over  the  temper 
of  the  people  as  to  the  vigorous  rule  of  the  sovereign. 

James  iv.  was  far  older  than  his  years.  As  Drummond 
of  Hawthornden  says,3  'The  King  in  the  strength  and 
vigour  of  his  youth,  remembering  that  to  live  in  idleness 
was  to  live  to  be  contemned  by  the  world,  by  change  of 
objects  to  expel  his  present  sadness,  and  to  enable  him- 
self for  wars  when  they  should  burst  forth,  gave  himself 
to  recreations  and  games,  and  with  a  decent  pomp  enter- 
tained all  knightly  exercises,  keeping  an  open  and  magni- 
ficent  Court.'     To    such   a    youth   a   man    like   William 

1  Pinkerton,  History  of  Scotland,  vol.  i.  b.  viii.  ;  Burton,  History  of  Scot- 
land, vol.  iii.  p.  191. 

2  Scottish  History  and  Literature,  chap.  iv.  pp.  119-121. 

3  History  of  the  Five  fameses,  by  W.   Drummond   of  Hawthornden, 
p.  66. 


WILLIAM  DUNBAR  45 

Dunbar  would  prove  irresistibly  attractive.  The  very 
qualities  wherewith  Dunbar  had  been  endowed  bv  Heaven 
in  measure  so  bountiful  were  those  in  which  the  Scots 
•  Merry  Monarch '  was  conspicuously  lacking.  Unlike  his 
great-grandfather,  whose  Kingis  Qithair  has  a  distinct 
note  of  originality  amid  acknowledged  obligations  to  'my 
maisters  dear,  Gower  and  Chaucere,'  unlike  his  son  also,  of 
whose  authorship  of  Christ's  Kirk  on  the  Green  and  Peblis 
to  the  Play  there  seems  little  reason  to  doubt,  James  iv. 
had  not  a  spark  of  that  imaginative  afflatus  which  viewed 
all  things  through  the  spectacles  of  idealism  and  romance. 

But  even  at  seventeen,  as  Maitland  remarks,1  James's 
strength  lay  in  knowing  by  a  sort  of  intuitive  divination 
whom  he  could  trust.  The  council  of  nobles  and  clergy, 
formed  as  a  sort  of  consultative  body  of  advisers  for  the 
young  King,  were  many  of  them  bitterly  opposed  to  each 
other.  But  the  faith  shown  by  the  youthful  monarch  in 
their  loyalty  to  himself  and  the  country  acted  as  a  sort 
of  subtle  coalescent  to  so  many  antagonistic  elements. 
His  very  helplessness  in  youth  was  his  strength.  But 
within  two  years  he  had  felt  his  feet.  The  council  was 
gradually  dispensed  with,  and  James  governed  alone  through 
his  Parliament. 

The  same  instinct  led  him  to  select  William  Dunbar 
as  his  confidential  '  King's  Messenger.'  Why  the  fact 
never  occurred  to  David  Laing  or  Dr.  Schipper,  when 
compiling  their  exhaustive  Lives  of  the  poet,  is  a  cir- 
cumstance which  to  me  is  inexplicable.  The  matter  is 
so  unmistakable  and  so  apparent  that  the  wonder  is  that 
1  History  of  Scotland,  by  William  Maitland,  F.R.S. 


46  FAMOUS  SCOTS 

any  other  explanation  of  the  facts  should  have  suggested 
itself. 

My  contention  is  that  William  Dunbar,  after  the  death 
of  the  unfortunate  James  m. — than  whom  never  has  the 
character  of  monarch  been  more  cruelly  misread — con- 
sidered that  now,  if  ever,  Scotland  was  to  experience  the 
prosperity  for  which  men's  minds  were  longing.  His  own 
fortunes  in  the  tottering  Romish  Church  were  far  from 
being  promising.  His  family  influence  probably  was 
exhausted.  To  play  his  last  card  then  for  his  individual 
advancement,  circumstances  demanded  that,  as  a  secular 
cleric,  and  that  alone,  he  should  be  introduced  to  the 
young  monarch. 

Who  the  good  Samaritan  was  that  brought  Dunbar 
directly  under  the  notice  of  his  young  King  we  have  only 
traditionary  hints  whereon  to  base  our  hypothesis.  Let 
us  give  them  for  what  they  are  worth.  Robert  Blackadder, 
Bishop  of  Glasgow,  over  the  elevation  of  whose  See  to 
archiepiscopal  rank  there  was  a  quarrel  so  bitter  between 
him  and  Schevez,  Archbishop  of  St.  Andrews,1  had  always 
been  a  firm  friend  to  Dunbar.  He  knew  and  valued  the 
genius  of  the  young  priest,  and  there  is  a  strong  presump- 
tion in  favour  of  the  theory  that  he  was  the  individual  to 
whom  we  are  indebted  for  introducing  Dunbar  to  the 
Court  of  King  James.  The  prelate  was  a  man  of  liberal 
culture  and  wide  sympathies,  a  correspondent  with  some 
of  the  leading  Italian  prelates,  and  with  Lorenzo  de  Medici,2 
regarding  the  influence  of  the  new  learning  on  the  inter- 

1  Burton,  vol.  iii.  p.  41  ;  also  Burns,  Calendar  of  State  Papers  in  Venice. 

2  Loci  Communes  Petri  Martyris  Vermilii  Florentini. 


WILLIAM  DUNBAR  47 

pretation  of  Scripture,  a  true  patriot  and  a  loyal  adviser  of 
his  sovereign  as  a  member  of  the  adjutory  council.  His 
life  was  exemplary  amid  an  ecclesiastical  hierarchy  corrupt 
to  the  core,  and,  like  Bishop  Kennedy  of  St.  Andrews  in 
the  previous  reign,  he  was  content  to  sacrifice  his  own 
comfort  and  prosperity  to  preserve  the  stability  of  the 
State.  The  Bishop,  for  he  was  not  yet  Archbishop, 
observing  how  easily  the  youthful  monarch  was  led  astray 
by  immoral  companions,  is  reported  to  have  thrown 
Dunbar  into  the  society  of  the  King  designedly,  in  the 
hope  that  he  might  exercise  a  restraining  influence  on  the 
youthful  ruler's  headstrong  sensuality.  There  is  extant  in 
the  private  collection  of  the  late  Due  d'Aumale  at  Chantilly 
— by  the  will  of  the  latter  now  the  property  of  the  French 
Academy1 — a  letter  of  Blackadder's  to  the  Bishop  of 
Beauvais,  wherein,  after  describing  the  excellences  of  the 
young  King,  he  expresses  regret  over  his  glaring  sensuality, 
but  adds  that  he  had  placed  a  young  man,  a  secular  priest, 
among  the  royal  attendants,  from  whose  influence  he 
expected  much.  The  name  of  the  young  man  was 
'  Gulidmus  Dunbar,  a  scholar,  and  also  an  excellent  poet.' 2 
Such  then  was  the  means  whereby  Dunbar  was  brought 
into  contact  with  the  monarch.  From  collateral  evidence 
we  glean  the  fact  that  the  introduction  must  have  taken 
place  about  January  1490.  Previously  to  that  date  our 
poet  must  have  made  that  lengthened  sojourn  in  the 
Bishop's  house  of  which  the  latter  speaks  on  many 
occasions — a  sojourn  which  enabled  the  keen-witted  pre- 

1  Cf.  Century  Magazine,  September  1897,  article  by  Pierre  de  Coubertin 
on  '  Royalists  and  Republicans.' 

2  D'Aumale  Collection. 


48  FAMOUS  SCOTS 

late  to  gauge  the  calibre  of  the  man  in  whom  he  was 

interesting  himself,  and  to  appraise  him  as  '  without  his 

marrow  in  our  aige.' 

There    is    some   difficulty   in    precisely    identifying   the 

special   services   upon   which   Dunbar  was   employed   by 

James   iv.     That  the  latter  did  employ  him,  and  withal 

extensively,  as  soon  as  he  discovered  how  implicitly  he 

could  trust   him,   is  evident   from    Dunbar's    own    words. 

He  states  that  he  had  travelled  on   the  business  of  his 

master,  not  only  through 

'  France,  England,  Ireland,  Almanie,1 
But  also  Italy  and  Spain.' 

That  the  period  through  which  he  had  been  so  engaged 
was  a  lengthy  one  is  manifest  from  the  poems  wherein 
Dunbar  refers  to  the  appointment  of  the  French  doctor 
and  quack  Damian  to  the  Abbacy  of  Tungland.  The  latter 
seduced  the  monarch  into  the  unprofitable  pursuit  after 
the  '  Philosopher's  Stone,'  Quinta  Essentia,  and  alchemy 
generally,  for  which  he  was  liberally  rewarded  by  his  dupe. 
We  shall  have  more  to  say  of  him  anon ;  in  the  meantime 
let  it  be  sufficient  to  remark  that  the  date  of  his  arrival 
at  Court  was  early  in  1501,  and  that  two  or  three  years 
after  he  was  gratified  with  a  benefice.2  Dunbar  contrasts 
this  treatment  with  that  meted  out  to  himself,  who  received 
nothing,  though  he  had  been  such  a  faithful  servant  to 
the  King. 

There  is  a  mournful  pathos  in  the  lines — 

'  Therefore,  O  Prince,  maist  honourable, 
Be  in  this  matter  merciable  : 3 

1  Almanie  =  Germany.       2  The  Fenyeit  Friar  of  Tungland.        3  Merciful 


WILLIAM  DUNBAR  49 

And  to  thy  old  servants  have  an  ee, 
That  lang  have  trusted  unto  thee  : 
If  I  be  one  of  them  mysel, 
Thorough  all  regions  has  tein  hard  tell,1 
Of  which  my  writing  witness  bears, 
And  yet  thy  danger  aye  me  dares  : 
But  after  danger  cometh  grace, 
As  hath  been  heard  in  mony  a  place.' 

From  1490  to  1500  Dunbar  was  seldom  left  unemployed. 
As  Laing  says,  '  It  is  well  known  that  James  iv.  maintained 
a  constant  and  friendly  intercourse  with  the  Courts  of 
France,  Flanders,  Spain,  Denmark,  and  other  countries, 
and  that  such  international  relations  were  carried  on  by 
the  mission  of  heralds,  envoys,  and  merchants,  as  well  as 
in  the  more  solemn  way  of  embassies  to  foreign  Courts, 
including  that  of  England.  The  most  probable  conjecture 
is  that  Dunbar  was  employed  in  the  course  of  these 
embassies,  as  it  was  usual  on  such  occasions  to  appoint 
"ane  clerk,"  for  it  must  be  considered  that  the  literary 
attainments  of  the  clergy,  who  were  almost  the  only  class 
of  men  who  then  received  anything  like  a  liberal  educa- 
tion, eminently  recommended  them  for  service  in  foreign 
negotiations.  In  the  safe-conduct  granted  to  such  em- 
bassies when  passing  through  England  to  go  beyond  seas, 
as  well  as  to  the  English  Court,  the  names  only  of  the 
two  or  three  leading  persons  are  mentioned,  with  a  specified 
number  of  attendants  and  horses  in  their  train.'2 

I  have  quoted  the  above  passage  in  order  to  give  Laing's 
position,  which,  however,  I  esteem  to  be  a  mistaken  one.3 
My  view  of  the  relations  existing  between  Dunbar  and 

1  Has  suffered  hardship.  2  Laing's  Dunbar. 

3  Cf.  Rymer's  Foedera  and  Rotuli  Scotiae  ;   Pinkerton's  History,  vol.  ii. ; 
Tytler,  vol.  iv. 

D 


5o  FAMOUS  SCOTS 

James  iv.  is  that  the  poet  was  the  monarch's  confidential 
agent.  In  his  earlier  years  James  was  obliged  to  be 
guided  in  everything  by  his  adjutory  council.  Gradually, 
as  Maitland  shows,  with  infinite  tact  he  emancipated 
himself  from  their  tutelage  without  offending  one  of  them.1 
But  this  course  of  action  demanded  that  he  should  have 
some  one  in  his  confidence  who  was  content  to  be  his 
instrument.  I  think  that  any  unbiassed  mind  which  reads 
the  following  poems  by  Dunbar  :  Dunbar's  Dirge  to  the 
King  at  Stirling,  New  Years  Gift  to  the  King,  Welcome  to 
the  Lord  Treasurer,  To  the  King  ('  Sir,  at  this  Feast,'  etc.), 
To  the  King  ('  Of  Benefice,  Sir,'  etc.),  Dunbar's  Complaint 
to  the  King,  must  admit  that  only  a  man  on  the  closest 
terms  of  familiarity  with  his  sovereign  could  have  written 
them.  Even  after  discounting  the  fact  that  the  relations 
between  royalty  and  the  subject  were  very  different  in 
Scotland  from  what  was  the  custom  in  France  and  England, 
still  the  matter  remains  inexplicable  on  any  other  hypo- 
thesis than  that  of  friendly  terms  of  familiarity.  The  man 
who  could  address  his  monarch  in  such  terms  as  these — 

'  I  grant  my  service  is  but  light ; 
Therefore  of  mercy,  not  of  right, 
I  ask  you,  Sir,  no  man  to  grief. 
None  may  remede  my  malady, 
So  well  as  you,  Sir,  verily  ; 
For  with  a  benefice  ye  may  preif 
And  if  I  mend  not  hastely  : 
Excess  of  thought  does  me  mischief:  '2 

— must  have  had  a  hold  on  him  that  was  none  of  the 
slightest.     Dunbar  was  a  proud  man.     He  realised  that 

1  Maitland's  History  of  Scotland.  2   To  the  King. 


WILLIAM  DUNBAR  51 

his  master  was  also  one  upon  whom  obligations  would  be 
always  binding  were  they  once  contracted.  There  were 
many  other  courtiers  whose  claims  for  recognition  were 
also  great,  but  not  so  outstanding  as  his.  To  impress 
them  on  the  King  at  sundry  times  and  seasons  was  the 
custom  of  the  period,  even  as  Chaucer  addressed  his  well- 
known  lines  To  his  Purse.  His  contemporaries'  appeals  are 
lost,  Dunbar's  are  preserved  to  earn  for  him  the  reputation 
of  an  importunate  beggar,  when  in  all  probability  his  proud 
nature  would  be  the  least  insistent  of  all  in  recalling  his 
services  to  remembrance. 

Dunbar,  as  '  King's  Messenger,'  would  have  many 
delicate  missions  to  fulfil — of  an  amatory  as  well  as  of  a 
political  character.  The  King  was  a  confirmed  gallant, 
and  on  more  than  one  occasion  there  is  a  strong  suspicion 
that  he  made  love  by  proxy.  He  was  deeply  attached  to 
a  daughter  of  Lord  Drummond,  and  was  determined  to 
marry  her  despite  all  the  remonstrances  of  his  council. 
Kings  in  their  minority,  however,  may  'propose,'  but 
adjutory  councils  dispose.  How  they  effected  it  is  not 
known.  Only  one  fact  has  come  to  light,  that  the  other 
nobles  dreaded  any  such  renewed  aggrandisement  of  the 
Drummond  family  as  had  been  the  case  when  Robert  in. 
married  Annabella,  daughter  of  Sir  John  Drummond  of 
Stobhall.1  There  is  no  doubt  that  Lady  Margaret 
Drummond  was  the  King's  mistress,  and  strong  presump- 
tion exists  that  the  affaire  de  cccur  was  promoted,  at  least 
in  its  initial  stages,  by  Dunbar.2      But  when  the  matter 

1  Drummond  of  Hawthornden,  History  of  the  Five  Jameses \ 

2  Burton,  vol.  iii.  p.  81. 


52  FAMOUS  SCOTS 

became  serious,  Lady  Margaret  and  her  sister  died  together 
at  Drummond  Castle,  so  suddenly  and  in  such  manner  as 
to  convince  all  that  poison  had  been  at  work.  I  have  a 
strong  conviction  that  Dunbar's  exquisite  poem  Of  Love 
Earthly  and  Divine  was  directly  inspired  by  the  remem- 
brance of  the  beautiful  Margaret's  untimely  fate.  Only 
for  a  reference  to  the  matter  have  I  space  in  this  small 
volume.  Elsewhere  I  hope  to  give  the  arguments  leading 
me  to  adopt  this  conclusion. 

But  ere  long  Dunbar  was  employed  on  worthier  work 
than  acting  as  go-between  for  the  royal  '  lover  and  his  lass.' 
At  the  time  of  the  death  of  King  James  m.  a  new  alliance 
was  about  to  be  concluded  with  Denmark.  The  disturbed 
state  of  the  kingdom  prevented  the  matter  from  being 
then  consummated.  That  consequently  led  to  rather 
strained  relations  existing  between  the  two  countries. 
For  nearly  three  years  Scotland  was  not  in  a  position  to 
re-conclude  the  alliance.  But  towards  the  close  of  the 
year  1490  the  Scots  Estates  enacted  that  an  embassy 
consisting  of  a  lord  (the  Bishop  of  Aberdeen),  a  knight 
(Sir  John  Ogilvy  of  Airly),  and  a  clerk  should  proceed  to 
Denmark,  and  for  their  expenses  each  Estate  was  ordered 
to  contribute  ^"ioo.1  William  Dunbar  was  undoubtedly 
the  '  clerk '  referred  to  above.  My  proof  of  this  assertion 
is  to  be  discovered  in  these  lines  in  the  famous  Flytitig 
which  speak  of  travelling  '  mony  hundreth  myle  ...  by 
Holland,  Zealand,  Zetland,  and  Norway  coast.'  Again 
and  again  Dunbar  refers  to  Zealand  or  Denmark,  ex- 
hibiting an  intimate  acquaintance  with  the  country  only 

1  Black  Acts,  fol.  85,  cap.  23. 


WILLIAM  DUNBAR  53 

to  be  attained  by  a  personal  visit  to  it.     Had  I  space  I 
would  cite  the  references.1 

The  next  mission  of  State,  wherein,  from  the  internal 
evidence  of  his  poems,  it  is  almost  certain  he  was  employed, 
was  to  Rome.  Pope  Innocent  vm.  and  his  successor, 
Alexander  vi.,  had  shown  peculiar  favour  towards  Scotland. 
In  the  first  place  they  had  withdrawn  the  excommunication 
pronounced  upon  the  murderers  of  James  m.,  and  in  the 
second,  they  had  acceded  to  the  King's  request,  and  had 
raised  the  See  of  Glasgow  to  Archiepiscopal  rank.  In  con- 
sequence of  that  favourable  conjunction  of  circumstances, 
the  Estates  of  the  Realm  considered  it  only  consistent  with 
their  dignity  to  send  a  splendid  embassy  to  France,  to 
Spain,  and  finally  to  Rome.  The  Earl  of  Bothwell  and 
the  Bishop  of  Glasgow  (who  was  repairing  to  Rome  to 
receive  the  Archiepiscopal  pallium)  were  the  heads  of  the 
embassy,  and  in  the  Black  Acts  we  note  that  a  sum  of 
^■5000  was  allocated  for  the  expenses  of  the  mission.2  In 
the  Letter  Book  of  St.  Mark's  Library  published  in  the 
Calendar  of  Venetian  State  Papers?  under  date  3rd  June 
1495,  the  intimation  is  made  of  the  arrival  there  of  certain 
Scots  ambassadors  en  route  for  Rome.  That  Dunbar 
visited  Venice  is  proved  by  his  references  to  the  city  in  his 
poems,  and  I  think  this  chain  of  evidence  is  sufficient  to 
create  at  least  the  very  strongest  presumption,  if  we  cannot 

1  Vide  also  Calendar  of  State  Papers,  and  the  Flyting,  lines  377-384. 

2  In  Rymer's  Foedera,  torn.  xii.  p.  446,  we  note  tliat  Henry  VII.,  on  14th 
June  1493,  granted  passports  and  safe-conducts  to  the  Earls  of  Bothwell 
and  Morton,  the  Bishops  of  Glasgow  and  Aberdeen,  the  Lords  Glamis 
and  Oliphant,  with  100  attendants,  to  travel  through  his  dominions  in 
order  to  visit  King  Charles  of  France  and  Ferdinand  and  Isabella  of  Spain. 

s  Vol.  i.  No.  628. 


54  FAMOUS  SCOTS 

go  the  length  of  affirming  the  absolute  certainty  of  it,  that 
Dunbar  was  a  member  of  the  embassy.  His  friend  and 
patron,  Bishop  Blackadder,  was  at  the  head  of  the  mission, 
and  there  is  Dunbar's  own  testimony  in  the  Flyting  that  he 
was  absent  from  Scotland  in  1493-94,  while  Kennedy  even 
alludes  to  the  name  of  the  vessel  in  which,  as  the  Black 
Acts  tell  us,  the  embassy  sailed,  viz.  the  Katherine,  as 
being  that  on  which  his  poetical  antagonist  had  been  on 
board  during  his  journey.  I  think  the  argument  may 
fairly  be  regarded  as  conclusive. 

From  1 49 1,  therefore,  until  the  close  of  1495,  William 
Dunbar  was  ceaselessly  travelling  abroad  in  the  service  of 
his  master.  That  fact  is  beyond  doubt,  whether  he  was  a 
member  of  the  embassy  or  alone.1  But  the  fact  that  his 
name  does  not  appear  in  the  Treasurer's  accounts  as  having 
debited  the  expenses  of  his  missions  inclines  me  to  the  belief 
that  his  charges  were  included  in  the  ^5000  guaranteed  by 
the  Scots  Parliament  to  the  embassy.  To  such  a  mind  as 
Dunbar's,  so  impressionable  and  alive  to  all  that  savoured 
of  artistic  beauty,  whether  in  literature  or  art,  his  travels 
abroad  must  have  been  to  him  as  a  second  education. 
While  in  Spain  he  would  be  brought  in  contact  with  those 
romances  in  stone  and  lime  wherewith  that  country  abounds 
— the  Moorish  palaces.  Than  the  Alhambra  at  Granada 
and  the  palaces  and  mosques  of  Cordova  and  Alcala  de 
Henares — where  resided  Cardinal  Ximenes,  the  Maecenas 
of    Spain,     probably    appointed    Archbishop    of    Toledo 

1  There  is  an  entry  in  the  Treasurer's  accounts  which,  though  mentioning 
no  names,  seems  to  point  to  Dunbar  :  '  Item  till  a  prest  that  wrote  the 
instrumentis  and  oderis  letteris,  that  past  with  the  imbassitouris  in  France, 
36s.' 


WILLIAM  DUNBAR  55 

■while  the  ambassadors  were  there — nothing  exists  exactly 
similar  to  them  either  in  design  or  magnificence  until  we 
reach  the  banks  of  the  Ganges.  Only  the  year  before 
their  arrival  also,  there  had  set  sail  from  the  bar  of  Saltes 
near  Palos,  with  the  Pinta  and  two  other  small  vessels,  that 
mighty  navigator  who  was  to  revolutionise  the  geographical 
face  of  the  world.  In  1493  Columbus  and  his  companions 
had  returned  with  the  intelligence  of  those  wondrous  worlds 
beyond  the  waste  of  seas.1  Probably  just  when  the  Scottish 
embassy  was  in  Spain  the  whole  country  would  be  ringing 
with  the  reports  of  the  discovery  of  that  new  empire  beyond 
the  western  main  which  was  to  make  Ferdinand  and  Isabella 
the  mightiest  rulers  of  the  world  of  their  time.  That  Dunbar 
had  been  deeply  impressed  with  what  he  saw  and  heard 
is  evident  from  his  reference  to  the  New  World  in  his  poem 
on  The  World's  Instability,  the  date  of  the  composition  of 
which  cannot  be  later  than  1496.  In  begging  a  benefice 
from  his  master,  he  recounts  the  unworthy  persons  that 
had  received  promotion,  adding,  with  reference  to  some 
promise  given  him — 

'  Unworthy  I,  among  the  lave, 
A  kirk  does  crave,  but  none  can  have  ; 
It  might  have  come  in  shorter  while 
From  Calicut  or  the  "  New-Fund  Isle."  ' 

From  Spain  he  would  proceed  to  France,  and  then  to 
Italy,  where  the  monuments  of  '  the  glory  that  was  Greece ' 
and  '  the  grandeur  that  was  Rome '  would  look  down  upon 
him.  Then  the  renown  of  Dante,  of  Boccaccio,  of  Petrarch, 
of  Giotto,  of  Brunelleschi,  of  Donatello,  of  Perugino  and 

1  Prescott,  Ferdinand  and  Isabella,. 


56  FAMOUS  SCOTS 

Leonardo  da  Vinci,  the  magnificence  of  Lorenzo  de  Medici, 
the  majestic  dignity  of  Alexander  vi.,  one  of  the  greatest  of 
the  Popes,1  together  with  that  ineffable,  inexplicable  grace 
which  resides  in  everything  pertaining  to  Italian  art  and 
literature,  and  which  afterwards  reaches  its  efflorescence  in 
Raphael  and  Tasso,  powerfully  impressed  him.  His  poems 
teem  with  references  to  that  Italian  exuberance  of  beauty, 
with  which  no  receptive  mind  can  long  be  brought  in 
contact  without  becoming  fascinated  by  its  witchery.  When 
William  Dunbar  turned  his  footsteps  homewards  along 
with  his  companions  he  was  a  changed  man.  He  had 
seen  the  evils  of  insularity  and  of  those  narrow,  bigoted 
ideas  Scotsmen,  in  those  days,  too  often  imbibed  through 
remaining  so  persistently  within  the  limits  of  their  own 
country.  His  poems  before  and  after  this  memorable 
epoch  of  travel  are  quite  distinct  in  tone  from  each  other. 
The  former  could  not  be  mistaken  as  being  the  work  of  a 
man  who  had  travelled  little  and  was  hide-bound  by  the 
prejudices  of  his  isolated  nation  :  the  latter  breathe  the 
free,  joyous  air  of  a  catholic  liberality  of  sentiment  and 
emancipation  from  that  bigotry  which  is  the  bane  of  true 
genius. 

From  the  State  Papers2  we  learn  that  while  journeying 
homewards  letters  reached  Robert  Blackadder,  Archbishop 
of  Glasgow,  requesting  him  to  return  to  Spain  in  order  to 
confer  with  the  representatives  of  Ferdinand  and  Isabella 
about  a  marriage  between  James  and  one  of  the  Spanish 
princesses,  although  the  curious  fact  is  elicited  from 
other  sources  that  the  ladies  in  question  were  either  all 

1  Ranke' 's  Lives  of  the  Popes.      -  Bergenroth's  Calendar  of  State  Papers. 


WILLIAM  DUNBAR  57 

contracted  in  marriage  or  were  already  married.  In  all 
this  diplomatic  dealing  glaring  bad  faith  was  kept  with  the 
Scots  King.  Blackadder  reached  Spain  late  in  August  1495, 
and  it  is  probable  that  Dunbar  accompanied  him.  At  all 
events,  the  Archbishop  reached  home  in  October  of  the 
next  year,  the  other  half  of  the  embassy  having  returned 
some  time  previous.1  Another  Scots  embassy  was  de- 
spatched to  Spain  from  James  iv.  in  November  or  December 
1495,  in  order  to  strengthen  the  Archbishop's  hands,  and, 
as  we  note  from  the  Treasurer's  accounts,  the  two  missions 
returned  to  Scotland  together  in  the  autumn  of  1496, 
Dunbar  having  been  absent  considerably  over  four  years 
from  his  native  land. 

1  Mr.  Paterson,  in  his  edition  of  Dunbar,  when  criticising  Laing's  state- 
ment about  the  return  of  the  embassy,  mistakes  the  return  of  the  Katherine, 
the  vessel  which  conveyed  them  to  Spain,  for  the  return  of  the  embassy 
itself.  The  latter  did  not  return  until  1496.  The  Bull  of  Pope  Alex- 
ander vi.,  confirming  the  foundation  of  the  University  of  Aberdeen,  one 
of  the  objects  of  the  mission,  is  dated  Feb.  10,  1495. 


CHAPTER    V 

THE    EPOCH    OF   THE    'FLYTING' 

The   closing   years   of  the  fifteenth  century  were  in  all 

probability  spent  by  Dunbar  in  Edinburgh  as  a  courtier, 

and  as  a  Court  poet.     His  intellectual  vision  had  been 

widened   by   travel,  and   his   society   was   now  doubtless 

increasingly  acceptable  to  the  King.     From  many  sources 

he  had  received  gratifying  proofs  of  his  popularity,  and 

doubtless  his  master  did  not  forget  his  temporal  wants. 

As  a  courtier,  Dunbar  boarded  at  the  King's  expense,  and 

received  each  year  his  robe  of  red  velvet  fringed  with  costly 

fur.    He  was  required  to  be  present  at  every  public  function, 

and,  if  it  presented  scope  for  poetic  treatment,  to  render 

it  into  verse.     This  was  the  office  of  a  'King's  Makar'  or 

laureate.     That  the  work  was  expected  of  him,  and  was  not 

merely  of  a  voluntary  character,  appears  from  Dunbar's 

almost   unknown  poem  addressed   to  the   monarch,  and 

entitled  On  his  Headache,  in  which  he  apologises  for  the 

non-execution  of  some  duty,  stating  that  his  'head  did  so 

ache  yesternight '  that  this  day  to  '  make  (compose)  he  did 

not  feel  able.'     A  similar  complaint  was  made  by  Shadwell 

when  he  was  laureate  in  the  reign  of  James  vn.1 

Dunbar  was  now  in  the  last  years  of  that  extraordinary 

1  Shadwell's  Works,  To  his  Headache. 
58 


WILLIAM  DUNBAR  59 

century  which  had  witnessed  events  so  remarkable  as  the 
invention  of  printing,  the  discovery  of  America,  and  also 
the  rounding  of  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  by  Vasco  da 
Gama, 

'  Whose  martial  fires  with  prudence  close  allied 
Ensured  the  smiles  of  fortune  on  his  side,' l 

the  Fall  of  Constantinople  with  the  consequent  Revival  of 
Learning,  and  the  overthrow  of  the  Moors  in  Spain.  He 
was  fully  conscious  how  remarkable  a  century  it  had  been, 
and  his  references  to  it  on  more  than  one  occasion  are 
characterised  by  a  kind  of  wondering  awe.  Surely,  he 
thinks,  the  end  of  all  things  cannot  now  be  far  off.  As 
regards  himself,  the  closing  decade  had  among  other  things 
been  memorable  for  the  humorous  passage-at-arms  in 
which  he  had  been  engaged  with  his  friend  and  great 
poetic  rival,  Walter  Kennedy.  Not  with  '  swords  or  staves ' 
was  the  warfare  waged.  It  took  the  shape  of  an  inter- 
change of  bitter,  satirical  lampoons  on  each  other,  in  which 
each  attempted  to  vilify  and  depreciate  the  other's  character 
as  much  as  possible.  The  contest  was  not  without  pre- 
cedent, and  has  not  lacked  imitators.  Luigi  Pulci  and 
Matteo  Franco  in  the  Florence  of  Lorenzo  de  Medici,  for 
the  amusement  of  their  readers,  loaded  each  other  with  the 
grossest  abuse,  yet  the  intimacy  of  their  friendship  is  said  to 
have  continued  without  interruption.2  Probably  during  his 
Italian  travels  he  had  been  brought  in  contact  with  the 

1  Camoens,  Lusiad,  b.  I. 

2  Life  of  Lorenzo  de  Medici,  by  Roscoe.  Dunbar  could  not  have  seen 
Lorenzo  personally,  as  he  died  in  1492,  but  probably  he  saw  the  other 
members  of  the  great  family,  particularly  the  sons  of  the  great  '  mediator 
of  Italy,'  Giovann  and  Piero. 


60  FAMOUS  SCOTS 

very  individuals  themselves,  and  their  example  may  have 
suggested  to  him  the  course  which  he  afterwards  followed. 
Among  many  imitations  of  the  Flyting,  that  of  Alexander 
Montgomerie,   author  of  The    Cherrie   and  the  She,  and 
Sir  Patrick  Hume  of  Polwart,    is  the   best.      The   com- 
mencement of  the  Flyting,  at  least,  and  in  all  probability 
the  greater  part  of  it,  was  written  during  those  years  when 
Dunbar   was    absent   from    Scotland   on   the    Continent. 
Indeed,  the  poet  himself  says  as  much  in  lines  89-96.     At 
present,  suffice  it  to  say  that  the  series  opens  with  a  letter 
from  Dunbar  to  Sir  John  the  Ross — a  mutual  friend  of  his 
own  and  of  Kennedy's, — in  which  he  sarcastically  alludes 
to  the  boastful  and  self-complimentary  style  adopted  by 
Kennedy  and  the  well-known  poet  of  the  period,  Quentin 
Shaw ]  in  some  conjunct  production  they  had  just  published. 
That  the  piece  in  question  is  lost  is  to  be  regretted.     We 
then  could  have  noted  the  passage  which  excited  Dunbar's 
mock  wrath,  and  seen  whether  there  was  therein  any  reference 
to  Dunbar  himself.     The  latter  probably  despatched  at  the 
same  time  a  letter  to  his  friend  Kennedy,  proposing  to  him 
that  they  should  engage  in  a  'Flyting'  of  such  a  character 
as  that  he  had  recently  heard  in  Florence.    From  Florence 
I   have  always  had  the  idea  Dunbar  had  sent  his  letter 
home  to  Kennedy,  enclosing  at  the  same  time  to  Sir  John 
the  Ross  the  'Challenge'  which  now  forms  Part  1.  of  the 
Flyting.      This,  I  think,  must  have  occurred  in  the  year 
1494  or  1495. 
Sir  John  the  Ross,   on    receiving  a  communication  so 

1  That  the  latter  is  implied,  and  not  an  unknown  poet  of  the  name  of 
Quentin,  is  far  more  likely  to  be  the  case. 


WILLIAM  DUNBAR  61 

extraordinary,  would  doubtless  at  once  take  steps  to 
forward  to  Kennedy  his  antagonist's  challenge,  and  also 
would  make  the  matter  as  public  as  possible.  As  a  courtier 
he  would  have  every  facility  so  to  do.  In  all  likelihood, 
from  the  numerous  copies  existing,  every  Court  gallant  and 
every  lady  fair  esteemed  it  '  the  correct  thing  '  to  boast  a 
copy  of  the  Fly  ting  all  to  themselves,  as  the  ladies  and 
gentlemen  of  the  Court  of  George  in.  were  accustomed 
to  carry  about  a  volume  of  Fanny  Burney's  Evelina  or 
Cecilia.  The  King  in  person  would  not  doubtless  be  the 
last  to  see  and  '  admire '  the  work  of  him  whom,  for  his 
sheer  genius  and  keen  intellectuality,  he  had  chosen  as  his 
confidential  messenger.  Nay,  when  Kennedy's  reply  came, 
we  can  fancy  how  supremely  James  would  enjoy  the  good 
hard  hitting  contained  in  it.  Can  we  not  picture  the 
scene  of  the  '  Merry  Monarch,'  himself  a  scholar  who,  as 
Don  Pedro  de  Ayala,  the  Spanish  Ambassador,  reported 
to  his  master,  '  spoke  the  following  foreign  languages — 
Latin  very  well,  French,  German,  Flemish,  Italian,  and 
Spanish,'1  and  loved  the  literatures  both  of  them  and  his 
own  land,  reading  aloud  the  pithy  passages  to  the  lords 
of  the  Court  with  ever  and  anon  the  quizzical  query  put, 
'  How  think  ye,  my  lords,  our  laureate  will  thole  this,  or 
will  reply  to  that  other?'  while  the  obsequious  courtiers, 
each  hungry  to  please  the  royal  giver  of  good  things,  would 
fall  into  affected  ecstasies  of  admiration  where  his  majesty 
admired,  and  condemn  beyond  hope  of  redemption  the 
places  with  which  he  was  not  so  impressed  ?  Doubtless  for 
many  a  long  day  the  two  initial  poems  of  the  Fly  ting  series 

1  Bergentoth's  Simancas  Papers,  169.  170. 


62  FAMOUS  SCOTS 

would  be  regarded  with  wonderment  supreme,  and  men 
would  speculate  anxiously  as  to  who  would  be  victor  in  a 
contest  so  novel. 

Many  months  must  probably  have  elapsed  before 
Kennedy  would  receive  his  reply.  There  can  be  little 
doubt,  I  think,  that  the  third  part  of  the  Fly  ting— -in 
other  words,  Dunbar's  second  contribution  to  it — was  not 
published  until  1496,  or  even  1497.  The  date  may 
perhaps  have  been  slightly  later;  I  do  not  think  it  can 
be  assigned  to  a  period  any  earlier.  The  balance  of  the 
internal  evidence  points,  in  my  opinion,  to  its  composition 
subsequent,  not  prior,  to  Dunbar's  return  home.  I  am 
aware  that  in  taking  this  view  I  am  placing  myself  in 
opposition  to  such  peerless  critics  of  Dunbar's  verse  as 
Dr.  Schipper  and  Sheriff  /Eneas  Mackay,1  than  the  latter  of 
whom  few  scholars  in  the  kingdom  have  a  more  intimate 
and  universal  acquaintance  with  every  point  relating  to 
early  Scots  literature.  But  the  significance  of  Dunbar's 
and  of  Kennedy's  words,  stating  that  the  former  was* 
residing  in  Scotland,  and  in  Edinburgh,  I  cannot  overlook. 
In  a  popular  sketch  such  as  the  present,  however,  to  enter 
into  all  the  minutiae  of  the  controversy  would  be  utterly  out 
of  place. 

The  reply  of  Dunbar  to  Kennedy  would  of  course  be 
speedily  followed  by  the  final  response  of  the  latter  to  his 
antagonist,  which  probably  was  written  early  in  1498.  The 
evidence  of  the  poems  themselves  may  be  cited  to  prove 
the  intense  interest  excited  by  this  '  Battle  of  the  Poets.' 

1  Schipper's  William  Dunbar:  Scin  Leben  und  seine  Gedichte  ;  Poems 
of  William  Dunbar,  edited  for  the  Scottish  Text  Society  by  the  late  John 
Small,  with  Introduction  by  JE.  ].  G.  Mackay,  LL.D. 


WILLIAM  DUNBAR  63 

To  the  popular  mind  there  is  something  invincibly  attrac- 
tive in  watching  two  intellectual  antagonists,  in  a  figurative 
sense,  '  rending  and  tearing  each  other.'  One  still  recalls 
the  amazing  interest  excited  more  than  a  couple  of  decades 
ago  by  the  famous  quarrel,  finally  fought  out  in  the  law- 
courts,  between  Mr.  Swinburne  and  Mr.  Robert  Buchanan. 
The  gladiatorial  contest  between  the  great  Hector  and 
Achilles  of  the  Court  of  King  James  appears  to  have 
aroused  an  attention  entirely  incommensurate  to  the 
importance  of  the  issues  at  stake.  The  very  fact  that  the 
Flyting  has  been  preserved  in  so  many  distinct  forms  in 
the  old  mss.  is  proof  of  the  widespread  character  of  the 
interest  it  aroused.  The  'publication'  of  Kennedy's  second 
reply  terminated  the  Flyting.  Whether  or  no,  as  in  the  case 
of  Luigi  Pulci  and  Matteo  Franco,  the  clergy  interfered 
and  interdicted  further  correspondence,1  or  whether  the 
good  sense  of  the  combatants  suggested  that  they  had 
gone  far  enough,  certain  it  is  that  the  interchange  of  poems 
stopped  when  each  party  had  contributed  two  poems  to 
the  series.  The  latter  contributions  are  infinitely  more 
scurrilous  and  abusive  than  the  first.  Every  name  that 
ingenuity  could  suggest  as  carrying  with  it  the  faintest 
suspicion  of  a  vituperative  meaning  was  hurled  to  and 
fro  between  the  antagonists.  The  incidents  of  their 
respective  lives,  be  they  as  destitute  as  could  be  of  any 
flagitious  associations,  were  all  perverted  for  the  purpose 
of  holding  the  individual  up  to  ridicule,  or  to  lay  charges  of 
crimes  the  most  absurd  and  impossible  against  him.  When 
Dunbar   stated   that   the  vessel    in   which    he   had    been 

1  Roscoe,  Life  of  Lorenzo  de  Medici. 


64  FAMOUS  SCOTS 

travelling  had   been  wrecked,    Kennedy  instantly  replied 
that  he  did  not  wonder  at  it — 

1  While  thou,  devil's  birth  Dunbar,  was  on  the  sea, 
The  sauls  had  sunken  through  the  sin  of  thee.' 

In  using  the  word  'published'  above,  it  must  not  be 
stipposed  that  as  yet  it  was  synonymous  with  printed. 
Although  there  were  many  books  in  Scotland  at  that  time, 
they  all  came  from  England  or  the  Continent.  No  print- 
ing-press was  established  in  Scotland  until  1507,  when 
Walter  Chepman  and  Andro  Myllar  obtained  the  King's 
permission  to  erect  one.  The  following  is  the  commence- 
ment of  their  royal  charter  granting  them  a  monopoly  of 
the  trade  : 1  '  James,  etc. — To  al  and  sindri  our  officiaris, 
lieges,  and  subdittis,  quham  it  efferis,  quhais  knawledge 
thir  our  lettres  salcum,  gretting  :  Wit  ye  that  forsamekill  as 
our  lovittis  servitouris  Walter  Chepman  and  Andro  Millar, 
burgesses  of  our  burgh  of  Edinburgh,  has  at  our  instance 
and  request,  for  our  plesour,  the  honour  and  profitt  of  our 
Realme  and  Leigis,  taken  on  them  to  furnis  and  bring 
hame,  ane  prent,  with  all  stuff  belangand  tharto,  and 
expert  men  to  use  the  samyne,  for  imprenting  within  our 
Realme  of  the  bukis  of  our  Lawis,  Actis  of  Parliament, 
Cronicles,  Mess  books,  and  portuus,  efter  the  use  of  our 
Realme,  with  additions  and  legendis  of  Scottis  Sanctis 
now  gaderit  to  be  ekit  thereto  and  al  otheris  bukis  that 
salbe  seen  necessar  ...  we  have  granted  and  promittit 
to  thame  that  thai  sail  nocht  be  hurt  nor  prevenit  tharon 
be  ony  utheris  to  tak  copyis  of  any  bukis  furth  of  our 

1  Registrum  Seer,  Sig.,  iii.  129. 


WILLIAM  DUNBAR  65 

Realme  to  gar  imprent  the  same  in  utheris  countreis,  to  be 
brocht  and  sauld  agane  within  our  realm,'  etc. 

Prior  to  the  establishment  of  this  press  in  the  Cowgate, 
there  was  absolutely  no  means  of  getting  any  work  printed 
unless  by  sending  it  to  England.  The  practice  then  of 
hand-copying,  the  process  in  vogue  for  so  many  hundreds 
of  years  prior  to  Faust  and  Gutenberg's  great  discovery, 
lingered  on  longer  in  Scotland  than  in  almost  any  other 
corner  of  Europe.  Though  Chepman  established  his  press 
in  1507,  and  for  several  years  put  out  books  from  it,  the 
national  troubles  after  Flodden  seem  to  have  checked  the 
nascent  industry.  It  was  not  until  1542  that  another 
printer  settled  for  a  time  in  Scotland,  but  not  until  1580 
that  Vautrollier l  and  others  appear  to  have  finally  estab- 
lished the  industry  on  a  permanent  basis.2 

Therefore,  when  Dunbar  and  Kennedy  were  engaged 
in  their  wordy  warfare,  any  copies  which  the  King  or  the 
courtiers  desired  had  of  course  to  be  transcribed  from 
the  originals,  exchanged  by  the  principals  in  the  Flyting. 
But  as  many  persons  in  those  days  earned  their  living  by 
making  additional  copies  of  volumes  which  were  desired 
to  be  retained  in  duplicate,  or  in  multiple,  to  prepare  a 
series  of  copies  would  be  a  task  of  no  difficulty  to  the 
scribes  of  the  time. 

During  the  final  decade  of  fhe  fifteenth  century  Dunbar's 
muse  must  have  been  very  busy.  Notwithstanding  the 
fact  that  he  was  travelling  all  over  Europe  from  the  banks 

1  Cf.  Calderwood's  Historie  of  the  Kirk  of  Scotland,  vol.  iv.  p.  467 ; 
also  Appendix,  vol.  viii.  p.  283. 

2  Thomas  Davidson,  printer  to  James  v.,  and  Henry  Charteris  in  1568, 
made  strenuous  efforts  to  establish  the  industry,  but  the  time  was  not  ripe. 

E 


66  FAMOUS  SCOTS 

of  the  Tiber  to  those  of  the  Guadalquivir,  from  the  shores 
of  the  Seine  to  those  of  '  cauld  Norway  over  the  faem,'  he 
was  no  idler,  nor  had  he  ever  been  one  of  the  gilded 
youth  of  the  Court  who  frittered  away  life  on  unworthy 
pleasures.  Those  ten  years  from  1490  to  1500  witnessed 
a  mighty  advance  in  Dunbar's  intellectual  stature,  as  we 
shall  examine  more  closely  when  we  reach  the  closing 
chapters  of  our  monograph.  He  began  them  uttering  the 
feeble  note  of  a  conventional  singer,  such  as  we  trace 
in  his  New  Year's  Gift  to  the  King,  The  Tod  and  the 
Lamb,  and  The  Twa  Married  Women  and  the  Widow. 
He  ends  them  with  the  firm  full  utterance  of  a  great  and 
imperially  strong  singer,  such  as  is  perceptible  in  The 
Ladies'  Solicitors  at  Court,  In  Fraise  of  Women,  and 
finally  the  imperishable  piece  which  James  seemed  to 
regard  with  such  favour,  Dunbar's  Dirge  to  the  King  at 
Stirling} 

Dunbar's  experience,  like  Ulysses',  of  the  'customs  and 
countries  of  many  men,'  enabled  him  to  draw  upon  an 
exhaustless  fund  of  illustration  and  example  to  render  his 
verse  more  acceptable  to  those  butterflies  of  the  Court  to 
whom  the  contemporary  allusions  in  a  poem  were  the  sole 
element  of  interest.  In  this  respect  Dunbar  was  beyond 
question  the  most  catholicly  cultured  of  fifteenth-century 
singers.  Nay,  even  with  the  exception  of  Shakespeare  and 
Ben  Jonson,  he  need  fear  comparison  with  none  of  the 
greater   poets    of   the   succeeding   century   as  well.     The 

1  I  adopt  Schipper's  chronology  (as  published  in  his  edition  of  Dunbar) 
regarding  the  approximate  dates  for  the  composition  of  the  poems.  See 
also  Sheriff  Mackay's  admirable  remarks  in  the  Scottish  Text  Society's 
edition  of  the  poems. 


WILLIAM  DUNBAR  67 

Golden  Targe,  which  was  one  of  the  earliest,  if  not  the  very 
earliest,  of  his  youthful  works,  displays  this  quality  very 
prominently.  It  is  filled  with  allusions  that  would  almost 
infallibly  have  betrayed  the  authorship,  if  through  any 
chance  it  had  been  published  anonymously.  The  famous 
lines  beginning 

'O  reverend  Chaucer,  rose  of  rhetoris  all,' 

would  be  sufficient  in  themselves  to  have  led  any  well- 
informed  critic  to  have  decided  without  hesitation  that 
these  stanzas  were  forged  upon  the  same  anvil  as  The 
Twa  Married  Women  and  the  Widow,  or  the  New  Year's 
Gift  to  the  King.  The  coinage  from  Dunbar's  mint  was 
not  stamped  like  that  of  any  other  author.  He  was  his 
own  mint-master,  and  the  phrases  he  employed  are  to  be 
found  in  the  poems  of  no  other  writer  of  his  time. 


CHAPTER    VI 


.'<- 


THE   EPOCH   OF   THE    KING  S    MARRIAGE  :    DUNBAR    AS    A 
COURTIER    IN    ENGLAND 

With    the   commencement  of  the   sixteenth   century  we 

reach  that  period  in  Dunbar's  life  when  the  historic  data 

upon  which  we   can   proceed   in  weaving   a  consecutive 

narrative  of  his  life  become  more  numerous  and   more 

reliable.     There  is  a  reference  in  one  of  his  poems, 

1  When  I  was  young  and  into  ply, 
I  had  been  bought  in  realms  by 
Had  I  consented  to  be  sauld.'1 

From  this  allusion  we  glean  the  fact  that  his  skill  and 
resource  in  discharging  his  master's  behests  had  been 
remarked  by  the  Court  officials  of  either  England  or 
France,  and  that  he  was  sounded  as  to  whether  he  felt 
inclined  to  transfer  his  services.  Though  Dunbar  here 
utilises  the  incident  to  show,  if  James  were  slow  to  reward 
the  poet  according  to  his  deserts,  that  other  monarchs  had 
indicated  their  disposition  to  make  up  for  the  neglect  if 
they  had  the  opportunity,  still  we  may  feel  assured  that  the 
hints  were  sternly  discouraged.  A  truer  patriot  than 
Dunbar  did  not  exist  in  the  Scotland  of  his  day.  He  was 
not  one  of  those  the  fervency  of  whose  patriotism  was  in 
exact  ratio  with  the  scale  of  the  rewards  heaped  on  them. 

1   The  Petition  of  the  Avid  Gray  Horse  Dunbar  to  the  King. 


WILLIAM  DUNBAR  69 

Perhaps  James  may  have  relied  too  much  on  the  absolute 
incorruptibility  of  his  laureate's  fidelity,  and  reserved  his 
honours  too  persistently  for  those  whose  patriotism  was 
a  variable  quantity. 

We  have  seen  that  he  visited  the  Courts  of  France  and 
England  in  the  previous  century.  That  his  work  had  been 
well  done  there  can  be  little  doubt,  and  now  he  was  to 
experience  the  first  official  mark  of  his  sovereign's  con- 
fidence and  regard.  In  theTrivy  Seal  Register,  under  date 
August  15th,  1500,1  stands  the  following  entry:  'A  Lettre 
made  to  Maister  William  Dunbar  of  the  gift  of  ten  ti  (;£io) 
of  pensioune  to  be  paid  to  him  from  our  Soverane  Lord's 
Coffers  by  the  Thesaurer  (Treasurer)  for  all  the  days  of  his 
life,  or  until  he  be  promovit  by  our  Soverane  Lord  to  a 
benefice  of  £40  or  abone,'  etc. 

This  yearly  pension  of  ^10  Laing  thinks  may  have 
been  granted  in  consequence  of  that  very  importunate 
address  to  the  King  in  which  he  says, 

'  Sir,  yet  remember  as  of  before 
How  that  my  youth  is  done  forlore 
In  your  service,  with  pain  and  grief, 
Good  conscience  cries  "  Reward  therefore." 

I  rather  incline  to  think,  however,  with  Schipper,  that  the 
above  is  one  of  Dunbar's  later  petitions  to  King  James,  as 
he  could  hardly  say  at  forty  that  '  his  youth  was  done 
forlore'  in  the  King's  service.2  It  is  certainly  more 
pleasant  to  believe  that  the  poet's  reward  was  unsought, 
and  came  to  him  as  a  tribute  to  his  own  merit.  From  the 
accounts  of  the  Lord  High  Treasurer  I  observe  that  the 

1  Vide  I? eg.  Seer.  Sigill.,  vol.  ii.  fol.  9. 

2  Vide  Schipper's  Poems  of  William  Dunbar,  p.  259. 


7o  FAMOUS  SCOTS 

pension  was  regularly  paid  at  Whitsunday  and  Martinmas, 
until  May  1507,  when  an  alteration  was  made  which  shall 
be  chronicled  in  its  place. 

With  regard  to  the  amount  of  the  pension  Laing  very 
aptly  remarks  :  'The  sum  of  ten  pounds  may  appear  small, 
and  at  that  time  one  pound  of  English  money  was  equal  to 
three  pounds  ten  shillings  Scots.  But  we  must  be  careful 
not  to  reckon  the  value  of  money  in  those  days  by  the 
present  standard.'1  From  the  estimate  of  the  purchasing- 
power  of  Scots  money,  comparatively  with  that  of  France 
and  England,  given  by  Ruddiman,  Maitland,  and  Chalmers, 
I  reckon  that  Dunbar's  pension  should  have  been  equal 
upon  an  average  to  about  ^35  of  our  money.  But  then 
Dunbar  was  boarded  at  the  King's  expense,  and  as  a 
courtier  he  received  his  robe,  so  that  actually  he  must 
have  been  at  very  little  expense  for  living.2 

Besides,  from  the  Treasurer's  books  the  fact  is  apparent 
that  Dunbar  had  received  many  gratuities  from  the  King 
over  and  above  his  pension.  In  January  1506,  and  again 
in  the  same  month  of  1507,  we  read,  'To  Master  William 
Dunbar  by  the  king's  command  because  he  lacked  his  gown 
at  Yule,  £5';  and  in  January  151 2,  'Item  to  Master 
William  Dunbar  for  his  Yule  livery  six  ells  and  a  quarter 
of  Paris  black  to  make  him  a  gown,  ^£12,  10s. ;  also  ^3, 
2s.  6d.  for  five  quarters  of  scarlet,  being  his  customary 
Yule  livery ' ;  also  in  the  December  of  the  same  year  '  forty 
pounds  for  his  Martinmas  fee.'     All  these  facts  go  to  prove 

1  Laing's  Dunbar. 

*  Boece,  as  Principal  of  the  University  of  Aberdeen,  'enjoyed  a  revenue 
of  forty  Scottish  merks,'  about  £2,  4s.  6d.  (Cf.  Johnson's  Journey  to  the 
Hebrides,  and  his  remarks  on  the  relative  value  of  money. ) 


WILLIAM  DUNBAR  71 

the  following  points — that  Dunbar  had  no  reason  to  complain 
of  the  King's  liberality  as  yet,  and,  second,  that  the  poet 
must  have  resided  continuously  at  the  Court  at  Holyrood 
or  Falkland,  and  not,  like  his  great  rival  Kennedy,  '  among 
the  leavis  grene'  of  the  country.      Like   Samuel  Johnson 
towards  Fleet  Street,  William  Dunbar  considered  the  High 
Street  and  Canongate  of  Edinburgh  the  fairest  spots  on 
earth.    He  was  a  lover  of  town  life,  of  its  luxuries,  its  amuse- 
ments, and  its  gaieties.      From  the  sentiments  expressed 
in   his  Dirge  to  the  King  at  Stirling  (which  must   have 
been  written  before  James's   marriage),   we  can  see  how 
rural  life  palled  upon  him.1    He  was  at  one  with  Maecenas, 
who  thought  the  'noise  and  smoke  of  happy  Rome'  to 
be  preferred  to  Horace's  Fons  Bandusia  and  the  delights  of 
the  Sabine  farm ;  and  to  William  Dunbar  the  scenes  which 
he  daily  witnessed  in  the  busy,  dirty,  crowded,  malodorous 
streets  of  the  capital,  which  he  pictures  so  inimitably  in 
his  Address  to  the  Merchants  of  Edinburgh,  had  a  charm 
infinitely  more  fascinating  than  the  matin-song  of  birds, 
heard  in  some  leafy  grove,  than  the  slumber  of  the  summer 
sunshine  on  the  green  Pentland  slopes,   over  which  the 
cloud-shadows  flitted  like  the  voiceless  spirits  of  the  past ; 
better  even  than  the  multitudinous  laughter  of  the  sun- 
kissed  sea,  or  its  sullen  rage  as  it  dashed  itself  in  breakers 
of  creamy  spume  against  the   iron-bound   shores  of  his 
native  Firth. 

But  he  was  once  more  to  be  recalled  from  his  much- 
loved    occupation    of    'brieving    ballates   for   the    King's 

1  Maitland's  History  of  Scotland;   Chalmers's  Caledonia;  Ruddiman's 
Diplomata  Scotiae. 


72  FAMOUS  SCOTS 

plesour,'  to  undertake  the  arduous  duties  of  King's 
messenger.  From  the  Treasurer's  books  we  observe  that 
his  pension  due  at  Martinmas  or  November  1501  was  not 
paid  with  the  others  on  the  20th  December,  but  was  '  payit 
him  aftir  he  cam  furth  of  Ingland.'  The  cause  was  his 
despatch  on  'the  marriage  mission,'  along  with  the 
ambassadors  who  were  sent  to  England  in  October  1501, 
and  returned  in  February  1502.  This  embassy,  as  I  have 
said,  was  once  more  concerned  with  the  question  of  the 
royal  marriage.  His  subjects  were  becoming  anxious  over 
the  question  of  the  succession  to  the  Crown,  for  if  James 
died  without  issue  the  country  would  once  more  be  rent 
by  the  civil  dissensions  of  the  various  claimants  to  the 
throne.1  Times  and  oft  they  had  implored  him  to  marry. 
As  has  already  been  pointed  out,  negotiations  were  opened 
with  Ferdinand  and  Isabella  for  the  hand  of  one  of  the 
Spanish  princesses.  After  keeping  him  in  suspense  for 
some  years  the  insulting  offer  is  alleged  to  have  been 
mooted  of  Ferdinand's  natural  daughter  Donna  Juana,2  if 
her  legitimacy  could  be  legally  secured  by  a  Papal  pro- 
clamation. James  haughtily  declined  even  the  suggestion 
of  such  a  union,  and  then  the  question  of  a  matrimonial 
alliance  with  England  was  formally  brought  up.  Not  that 
the  monarch  was  at  all  anxious  to  assume  the  conjugal 
yoke.  Several  ladies  of  high  rank  were  his  mistresses,  by 
whom    he   had    two  or  three   illegitimate    children.8     He 

1  Tvtler's  History  of  Scotland ;  Burton's  History. 

2  Bergenroth's  Calendar  of  State  Papers. 

3  Drummond,  in  his  History  of  the  Five  Jameses,  gives  their  names- 
Alexander,  afterwards  Archbishop  of  St.  Andrews,  so  much  admired  by- 
Erasmus  ;  Margaret,  married  to  John,  Lord  Gordon ;  James,  Earl  of 
Moray ;  and  Jean,  married  to  Malcolm,  Lord  Fleming. 


WILLIAM  DUNBAR  73 

would  willingly  have  allowed  matters  to  rest  where  they 
were.  But  the  Estates  of  the  Realm  were  so  persistent  in 
their  requests  that  at  length  he  assented  to  approach  the 
Court  of  Henry  vn.  with  regard  to  the  matter.  Across 
the  Border  the  proposal  was  accorded  most  gratifying 
treatment.  The  whole  nation  was  favourable  to  the  union, 
in  the  hope  that  it  would  put  an  end  to  those  centuries  of 
hostility  that  had  brought  sorrow  and  loss  to  both  countries. 
After  the  overtures  had  been  received  in  so  favourable  a 
manner,  the  Scots  monarch  was  invited  to  send  an  Embassy 
to  the  Court  of  Henry  vn.  to  arrange  the  terms  of  the 
alliance  with  the  Princess  Margaret. 

The  ambassadors  who  are  named  in  the  safe-conduct, 
dated  2nd  July  1500,  were  Robert  Blackadder,  Archbishop 
of  Glasgow;  Patrick  Hepburn,  Earl  of  Bothwell,  High 
Admiral;  Andrew  Forman,  Apostolical  Prothonotary  (after- 
wards Bishop  of  Moray) ;  and  Sir  Robert  Lundy,  Treasurer 
of  Scotland,  with  a  retinue  of  one  hundred  persons.1  The 
royal  pair  being  within  the  fourth  degree  of  consanguinity, 
a  Papal  dispensation  had  to  be  obtained,  dated  at  Rome 
5th  August  1500.2  This  fact,  and  the  extreme  youth  of  the 
Princess  Margaret,  occasioned  some  delay,  as  Laing  records. 
But  the  negotiations  were  not  interrupted,  and  under  a  new 
safe-conduct,  dated  9th  May  1501,  and  carrying  with  them 
the  contract  of  marriage,  dated  8th  October  1501,  the  same 
ambassadors  named  above  departed  for  London.  William 
Dunbar  was  one  of  the  company.  Where  Blackadder 
went  he  was  almost  certain  to  have  insisted  upon  Dunbar 
being  one  of  his  company. 

1  Rotuli  Scotiae,  vol.  ii.  p.  542.  -  Rymer's  Foedera. 


74  FAMOUS  SCOTS 

Dunbar  in  his  poems  more  than  once  refers  to  the 
Princess's  marriage  jointure  being  worthy  of  James's  liberality. 
The  lands  assigned  her,  as  Rymer  records,1  were  the  forest 
of  Ettrick,  the  manor  and  fortress  of  Newark,  the  county 
of  March,  the  lordships  of  Dunbar  and  Cockburnspath,  the 
lordship  and  palace  of  Linlithgow,  the  lordship  and  castle 
of  Stirling,  the  earldom  of  Menteith,  the  lordship  and 
castle  of  Down,  and  the  palace  and  lordship  of  Methven — 
truly  a  noble  wedding  settlement. 

Now  it  may  be  asked,  What  evidence  have  we  on  record 
that  Dunbar  was  one  of  the  ambassadorial  party?  The 
answer  is — Absolutely  decisive  !  The  credit  of  disinterring 
this  belongs  to  Laing.  Let  us  in  justice  to  himself  permit 
him  to  tell  it  in  his  own  words.2  According  to  the  Cotton 
mss.,  'the  Scottish  ambassadors  on  arriving  in  London 
entered  at  Bishopsgate,  and  were  conveyed  through  Cornhill 
and  Cheapside  to  the  Lord  St.  John's  without  Smithfield, 
where  they  were  lodged.  In  the  Christmas  week  they  were 
entertained  at  dinner  by  the  Lord  Mayor,  and  it  was  on 
this  occasion  that  Dunbar  recited  his  verses  in  praise  of 
the  City  of  London.' 

In  folio  199  of  the  Cotton  ms.  we  read:  'This  yere  in 
the  Cristmas  weke,  the  Mair  had  to  dyner  the  Ambasadors 
of  Scotland,  whom  accompanyed  my  Lord  Chauncelor  and 
other  Lords  of  this  realme :  where  sittying  at  dyner,  one 
of  the  said  Scottis  giving  attendaunce  upon  a  Bisshop 
Ambassador,  the  which  was  reported  to  be  a  Prothonotary 
of  Scotland,  and  servant  of  the  said  Bisshop,  made  this 

1  Rymer's  Foedera,  torn.  xiii.  p.  62. 

2  Laing's  Dunbar,  vol.  i.  p.  272. 


WILLIAM  DUNBAR  75 

balade   folowying.'      Then   is   appended    Dunbar's    poem 
which  begins — 


'&* 


'  London,  thou  are  of  Townes  A  per  se 
Soveraign  of  cities  semeliest  in  sight 
Of  high  renown  riches  and  royalty 
Of  lordis,  barons  and  many  a  goodly  knight.' 

In  this  poem  Dunbar  pays  a  noble  tribute  to  the 
splendour  of  London,  which  seems  to  have  impressed  him 
deeply.  Some  of  the  phrases  he  employs  are  testimony 
of  the  pleasure  he  derived  from  his  stay  in  the  English 
metropolis.  '  London,  thou  art  the  flour  of  cities  all,' 
' Gerarae  of  all  joy,  jasper  of  jocunditie,'  'Empress  of 
towns,'  'Sweet  paradise  precelling  in  pleasure,'  'O  Town 
of  Towns,  patron  without  compare,'  are  some  of  the  epithets 
showered  by  him  on. the  London  of  Henry  vn.  Great  as 
was  his  love  for  the  Queen  City  of  the  Forth,  honesty 
compelled  him  to  grant  that  the  palm  must  be  assigned  to 
the  '  Empress-City  of  the  Thames.'  Patriotism  did  not  blind 
him  to  the  undeniable  facts  of  the  world  around  him, 
and  he  obtained  his  reward  for  his  impartiality.  During 
the  Christmas  festivities,  'The  Rhymer  of  Scotland,'  whose 
poem  on  London  was  the  theme  of  praise  universal,  and 
whom  we  have  seen  to  be  beyond  doubt  Dunbar,  received 
from  Henry  vn.  a  gift  of  jQ6,  13s.  4d.  on  the  31st 
December  1501,  and  on  the  7th  January  1502  another 
gratuity  of  the  same  amount.1  The  latter  present  in  all 
probability  would  be  bestowed  upon  him  in  consequence 
of  some  congratulatory  Ode  to  the  Princess  Margaret  in 
view  of  her  approaching  betrothal  to  the  King  of  Scots, 

1  Privy  Purse  Expenses  of  Henry  VII.,  in  Bentley's  Excerpta  Historica. 


76  FAMOUS  SCOTS 

Dunbar,  while  a  noble  genius,  was  also  the  most  far-seeing 
of  opportunists.  Never  was  there  a  chance  neglected  by 
him  of  advancing  his  own  interests.  Genius  in  his  eyes 
was  shrewdness  tempered  by  expediency.  He  saw  in  this 
visit  his  life's  chance  of  distinguishing  himself.  He  had 
no  scruples  on  the  score  of  delicacy,  or  hesitation  in 
thrusting  himself  forward  before  the  poets  of  the  England 
of  the  time.  Perhaps  he  entertained  that  lordly  contempt 
for  them  which  they  deserved.  Be  this  as  it  may,  Dunbar 
left  London  a  man  of  much  greater  consequence  than 
when  he  entered  it.  Doubtless  his  firm  friend  and  patron, 
Archbishop  Blackadder,  had  been  duly  instrumental  in 
furthering  his  interests  amongst  those  at  the  English  Court 
who  were  in  a  position  to  assist  the  poet.  The  miserly 
Henry  vn.  was  not  the  man  to  present  an  unknown  poet 
with  gifts  so  valuable  unless  he  had  been  specially  brought 
under  his  notice  by  some  of  his  leading  courtiers. 

Taking  all  these  items  of  evidence  into  account,  there- 
fore, it  is  almost  a  certainty  that  William  Dunbar  was  one 
of  that  brilliant  company  which  on  the  25th  of  January 
1502  witnessed,  at  St.  Paul's  Cross,  London,  the  ceremony 
of  the  formal  affiancing  of  the  Princess  Margaret  to  King 
James.1  The  rite  was  celebrated  with  great  pomp  and 
solemnity,  Patrick,  Earl  of  Bothwell,  being  the  King's 
proxy  on  the  occasion,  and  Archbishop  Blackadder, 
Testificator-in-Chief  for  the  kingdom  of  Scotland.  That 
Dunbar  would  be  near  his  patron  at  the  ceremony  in 
order  that  he  might  see  and  hear  all  with  a  view  to 
preserving  a  record  of  it  in  his  verse,  may  be  taken  for 

1  Rymer,  vol.  xii.  ;  Rotull  Scotiae. 


WILLIAM  DUNBAR  77 

granted.  As  the  princess  was  very  young,  only  in  her 
thirteenth  year,  the  marriage-contract  specially  stipulated 
that  her  father  should  not  be  obliged  to  send  her  to 
Scotland  before  the  12th  September  1503.1 

Doubtless  Dunbar,  while  in  England,  wrote  many  poems 
on  subjects  arising  out  of  special  circumstances  of  this 
visit.  That  none  of  these  have  as  yet  been  discovered, 
close  though  the  search  made  for  them  has  been,  is  a 
matter  occasioning  not  a  little  surprise  in  the  minds  of 
Dunbar  students.  He  had  every  reason  to  exert  his 
poetical  abilities  to  the  utmost  when  in  England,  for  the 
recognition  he  received  would  be  generous  in  the  extreme. 
Dunbar  was  at  that  moment  the  greatest  living  English- 
speaking  poet  of  his  epoch.  He  alone,  along  with  the 
brilliant  group  that  surrounded  the  throne  of  James  iv., 
saved  the  age  from  utter  sterility,  and  threw  a  lustre  over 
the  literature  of  the  Northern  Kingdom  which  it  was 
never  again  to  lose.  'South  of  the  Tweed,'  as  the  late 
Professor  Henry  Morley  remarks,  '  in  the  twenty-four  years 
of  Henry  vn.'s  reign,  from  1485  to  1509,  the  fields  of 
literature  lay  still  bound  by  the  long  winter  of  a  Civil 
War.  ...  It  is  evidence  of  the  weakness  of  our  literature 
under  Henry  vn.,  that  two  foreigners,  a  Frenchman  and 
an  Italian,  Bernard  Andre  and  Polydore  Vergil,  would 
have  been  named  by  the  King  himself,  or  by  any  English- 
man, if  he  had  then  been  asked  who  were  the  chief 
writers  in  England.'2  Can  the  fact  be  wondered  at 
then  that  William  Dunbar,  with  his  brilliant  genius  and 

1  This,  however,  was  not  observed.     The  Princess  reached  Scotland  in 
August  1502. — Burton. 

2  English  Writers,  vol.  vii.  pp.  56-59. 


78  FAMOUS  SCOTS 

surpassing  faculty  of  musical  rhythmical  composition,  must 
have  struck  the  Londoners  as  a  poet  of  the  most  super- 
lative excellence. 

But  an  epoch  in  Dunbar's  life  is  now  about  to  open — 
the  most  prolific  as  well  as  the  most  supreme  in  the  history 
of  his  genius — an  epoch  when,  as  a  laureate,  he  would 
be  presented  with  a  fitting  theme  for  his  verse.  In  July 
1502  the  Princess  Margaret  set  out  from  her  father's 
palace  at  Richmond  on  her  journey  towards  Scotland.1 
Escorted  as  far  as  Colleweston  by  the  King,  he  there 
resigned  her  to  the  care  of  the  Earls  of  Northumberland 
and  Surrey,  who,  with  a  magnificent  retinue  of  lords  and 
earls,  knights  and  esquires,  conducted  her  to  the  meeting- 
place  on  the  borders  of  the  two  countries — Lamberton 
Kirk,  where  her  husband-elect,  with  all  pomp  and  splen- 
dour, was  waiting  to  receive  her.  In  the  train  of  the 
Scots  monarch  rode  William  Dunbar,  ready  to  welcome 
the  Princess  with  'ane  ballate  of  gratulation.' 

1  Maitland's  History. 


CHAPTER    VII 

CELEBRATION    OF   THE    MARRIAGE  :    DUNBAR'S 
EPITHALAMIUM 

On  the  5th  August  1502  James  iv.  met  his  bride  at 
Lamberton  Kirk.  On  the  succeeding  day  they  travelled 
as  far  as  Dalkeith;  on  the  7th  the  King  escorted  her  to 
the  gates  of  Edinburgh,  which  they  entered  amidst  the 
enthusiastic  joy  of  the  inhabitants,  and  every  demonstra- 
tion of  welcome.  The  King  went  to  meet  his  fair  Margaret 
arrayed  magnificently  in  a  jacket  of  crimson  velvet, 
bordered  with  cloth  of  gold.  His  doublet  was  of  violet 
satin,  his  hose  of  scarlet,  his  shirt  bound  with  precious 
stones  and  pearls,  his  spurs  gilt  and  long.  He  mounted 
the  palfrey  of  the  Princess,  who  sat  on  pillion  behind 
him,  and  so  moved  on  to  Edinburgh.  As  they  entered 
the  city  the  houses  and  windows  were  hung  with  tapestry, 
and  were  full  of  lords  and  ladies,  gentlemen  and  gentle- 
women, and  in  the  streets  was  so  great  a  multitude  of 
people  that  it  was  a  fair  thing  to  see.  On  the  8th  of 
the  same  month  the  marriage  ceremony  took  place  in 
the  Abbey  of  Holyrood,  with,  says  Laing,  a  degree  of 
solemnity  and  splendour  which  perhaps  was  never  equalled 
in  this  part  of  the  kingdom.1     The  Scots  capital  wore  its 

1  Arnot's  History  of  Edinburgh;  Anderson's  Edinburgh. 

79 


80  FAMOUS  SCOTS 

festal  attire,  fountains  festooned  with  flowers  flowed  with 
wine  in  the  open  street,  whole  oxen  and  sheep  were 
roasted  in  the  High  Street,  every  house  was  draped  with 
'cloth  of  gold  or  cramoisie,'  every  burgess  and  his  wife 
sported  it  in  new  attire.  Never  was  there  such  a  season 
of  rejoicing  before  or  since  in  the  old  Scots  capital. 

William  Dunbar  was  rejoicing  with  the  others.  He 
was  glad  that  at  last  the  King  was  honourably  married, 
and  that  the  standing  scandal  of  his  relations  with  several 
ladies  of  rank  would  now  be  at  an  end.  Dunbar  loved 
his  monarch,  and  the  depth  of  his  affection  was  proved 
by  the  fact  that  he  did  not  scruple  to  talk  pretty  straight 
to  him,  and  to  rebuke  him  sharply  when  he  felt  that  such 
a  course  of  action  would  tend  to  the  King's  good.  The 
poet  was  no  censorious  hypocrite.  His  advice  was  based 
on  sound  moral  principle,  of  which  an  echo  would  be 
awakened  in  every  true  heart — ay,  in  that  of  the  King 
himself,  who  was  very  far  indeed  from  being  the  heartless 
sensualist  he  is  too  often  represented. 

But  Dunbar's  joy  would  not  be  complete  if  it  did  not 
express  itself  through  the  medium  of  his  beloved  art. 
When  the  lovely  Princess  Margaret,  escorted  by  her 
handsome  husband-elect,  arrived  at  Holyrood,  she  was 
in  all  probability  received  and  welcomed  by  some 
spectacular  enterlainment.  My  theory  is  that  Dunbar's 
exquisite  little  poem,  which  I  cannot  refrain  from  quoting 
here,   formed   the   central   item   in   a   kind   of   masque.1 

1  John  Young,  Somerset  Herald,  in  his  interesting  Journal  of  the 
Princess's  progress  from  England  to  Scotland,  written  for  Henry  Vii.'s 
own  eye,  remarks  that  at  the  festivities  '  Mynstrells  of  Musicke '  at  different 
times  played  and  sung  ballads  in  the  King's  and  Queen's  presence. 


WILLIAM  DUNBAR  81 

The    poem   has   lived,    the   masque   has  perished.      The 

ode    is    inscribed    'To    the    Princess    Margaret   on    her 

arrival    at    Holyrood,'    and    must    therefore    have    been 

presented  to   her   before   her  marriage  on   the  following 

day.     The  piece  is  characterised  by  all   Dunbar's  poetic 

force  and  figurative  felicity.     It  runs  as  follows : — 

'  Now  fair,  fairest  of  every  fair, 
Princess  most  pleasant  and  preclare, 
The  lustiest  one  alyve  that  bene, 
Welcome  of  Scotland  to  be  Quene. 

Young  tender  plant  of  pulchritude, 
Descendyd  of  Imperyalle  blude  : 
Freshe  fragrant  floure  of  fayre  hede  shene, 
Welcum  of  Scotland  to  be  Quene. 

Swete,  lusty,  lnsum  lady  clere, 
Most  mighty  Kinges  daughter  dere, 
Borne  of  a  princess  most  serene, 
Welcum  of  Scotland  to  be  Quene  ; 

Welcum  the  Rose  bothe  red  and  white, 
Welcum  the  flower  of  our  delight : 
Our  Spirit  Rejoicing  from  the  splene, 
Welcum  of  Scotland  to  be  Quene. 

Welcum  of  Scotland,'  etc. 

But  Dunbar  was  not  content  with  this.  In  view  of  the 
royal  marriage,  when  all  others  were  presenting  gifts  to  the 
bride  and  bridegroom,  Dunbar  came  forward  with  the 
richest  gift  of  all,  that  magnificent  Epithalamium  The 
Thistle  and  the  Hose,  which  to  this  day  one  reads  with 
delight  and  admiration.  In  all  likelihood  the  poem  would 
be  placed  before  the  royal  pair  on  their  wedding  day,  or 
immediately  after  it,  although  it  had  been  written  some 
three  months  previous.  To  the  English  visitors  the  fact 
would  be  brought  home  that  on  the  sterile  soil  of  Scotland 

F 


82  FAMOUS  SCOTS 

had  been  reared  a  singer  whose  genius  was  so  soaring  that 
to  find  his  compeer  they  had  to  go  back  to  Geoffrey 
Chaucer.  The  effect  produced  by  it  was  electrical.  Con- 
temporary chronicles  all  mention  it,  and  the  poem  of  that 
century  which  has  been  as  frequently  as  any  other  found 
among  the  larger  of  the  ancient  collections,  the  Bannatyne 
and  other  mss.,  is  The  Thistle  and  the  Rose.  It  was  the 
first  great  national  poem  which  was  felt  worthy  of  national 
attention — for  Barbour's  Bruce  and  Blind  Harry's  Wallace 
can  only  be  regarded  as  little  better  than  rhyming  chronicles, 
— and  it  placed  Dunbar  at  the  pinnacle  of  that  reputation 
from  which  he  was  never  afterwards  to  be  displaced. 

To  the  young  Queen  also  the  poem  would  in  all  pro- 
bability prove  for  its  author  a  means  of  introduction. 
Even  so  proud  a  lady  as  the  daughter  of  Henry  vn.  might 
feel  flattered  by  a  tribute  so  glorious,  yet  withal  so  delicate, 
as  that  paid  in  The  Thistle  and  the  Rose.  That  Margaret 
was  afterwards  upon  terms  of  the  closest  intimacy  with 
Dunbar  is  evident  from  the  testimony  of  his  poems.  No 
man  would  dare  to  make  mention  of  the  Queen  in  the 
manner  in  which  Dunbar  did  without  having  good  grounds 
for  so  doing,  least  of  all  the  Court  poet,  the  permanence 
of  whose  position  was  dependent  solely  on  the  favour 
wherein  he  stood  with  his  royal  master  and  his  lady.1  Such 
compositions  as  To  the  Queue — Of  James  Doig,  Keeper 
of  the  Queen's  Wardrop,  Madame  your  men  said  they 
would  ride,  A  Dance  in  the  Queue's  Chamber,  and  other 
poems,  are  proof  positive  of  a  close  intimacy  existing 
between  the  young  girl  dragged  from  her  home  atmosphere 

1  Cf.  Mackay's  Life  of  Dunbar,  and  Schipper. 


WILLIAM  DUNBAR  83 

of  quiet  comfort  to  stand  in  the  fierce  light  that  beat  upon  the 

Scots  throne,  and  the  large-hearted,  joyous-spirited  laureate 

of  the  Court,  who,  while  he  could  with  all  the  dignity  and 

authority  of  his  grey1   hairs  read    the   monarch,   in   The 

Thistle  and  the  Rose,  a  stern  lesson  about   relinquishing, 

now  he  was  married,  all  unlawful  loves — 

1  Hold  no  other  flower  in  such  duty 
As  the  fresh  Rose  of  colour  red  and  white, 
For  if  thou  dost,  hurt  is  thine  honesty,' 

yet  could  so  far  enter  into  the  giddy  gaieties  of  the  Court 
as  to  dance  a  '  dirry  dantoun '  in  the  Queen's  chamber — 
and  that  so  energetically  as  to  lose  his  slipper  in  his 
exertions.  No  wonder  that  the  lonely  girl,  to  whom  all 
in  the  Court  appeared  so  strange  and  so  unwonted,  clung 
with  an  earnestness  of  affection,  unusual  in  one  occupying 
so  exalted  a  position,  to  this  keenly  sympathetic,  yet  intel- 
lectually peerless  singer  of  the  far  North.  Margaret  doubt- 
less felt  that  in  this  great-souled  man  there  was  to  be  found 
at  once  a  protector,  an  adviser,  and  a  friend.  We  shall  yet 
see  that  her  goodwill  was  to  bear  abundant  fruit  in  the 
days  that  were  to  come.  For  the  delicate,  unobtrusive 
kindness  he  showed  the  girl-wife  he  was  to  reap  his  reward 
when  his  patron  and  monarch  was  no  more. 

For  the  next  two  or  three  years  Dunbar's  life  was  that  of 
a  courtier,  enjoying  to  the  full  the  pleasures  and  the  jubi- 
lations which  attended  the  home-bringing  of  a  Queen  to 
preside  over  all  the  pomp  and  the  pageant  of  the  Scottish 
Court.  Contemporary  chronicles  tell  us  that  for  nearly 
two  years  the  pleasures  and  the  merry-making  went  on. 

1  That  Dunbar  had  already  grown  grey  in  the  service  of  the  Court,  see 
the  poem  The  Auld  Gray  Horse  Dioibar. 


84  FAMOUS  SCOTS 

James  apparently  was  determined  that  his  young  wife 
should  be  kept  from  brooding  over  the  severance  of  all  her 
early  relations,  until  new  links  were  forged  in  the  chain  of 
life  that  would  bind  her  to  the  land  of  her  adoption.  In 
those  '  spectacles '  and  exhibitions  William  Dunbar  took 
his  full  share,  and  the  poems  of  his  which  are  by  general 
consent  attributed  to  this  period  are  filled  with  allusions  to 
the  splendour  and  the  gaiety  of  the  Court,  to  the  bustle 
and  the  business  of  the  crowded  capital  city,  to  the  con- 
stant succession  of  impressive  pageants  which  passed  up 
and  down  the  streets  of  the  romantic  town,  from  Holyrood 
to  the  Castle,  from  the  Castle  to  the  Kirk  of  St.  Giles,  or 
the  stately  pile  of  Craigmillar. 

Nay,  the  whole  many-sided  life  of  that  brilliant  time 
lives  for  us  once  more  in  the  undying  verse  of  the  great 
poet.  Once  more  we  seem  to  see  the  Court  of  James  iv. 
before  us — to  behold  the  King  and  the  gay  courtier  gallants, 
accompanied  by  Queen  Margaret,  Mrs.  Musgrave  her  Lady 
of  the  Bedchamber,  and  her  five  Maids  of  Honour,  sweeping 
away  in  a  glittering  cavalcade,  on  some  hawking  expedition 
to  the  Hunter's  Bog,  and  to  Duddingston,  or  to  hunt  the  red 
deer  in  the  Forest  of  Drumsheugh,  or  across  the  Borough- 
muir  towards  Braid  or  Pentland.  Or,  again,  we  behold  the 
lists  set  in  the  tilting-ground  at  Greenside,  while  thousands 
of  spectators  lining  the  green  slopes  of  the  Calton  Hill  ob- 
serve with  shouts  of  pride  that  no  one  can  excel  their  own 
manly  monarch  in  all  the  knightly  sports  of  the  period.1 

Or  we  are  carried  on  the  wings  of  imagination,  by  the 
magic  wand  of  the  poet,  into  the  stately  Church  of  St.  Giles, 

1  Letter  of  Don  Pedro  de  Ayala,  Ambassador  from  Spain  to  Scotland,  in 
Bergenroth's  Simancas  State  Papers. 


WILLIAM  DUNBAR  85 

at  Easter-tide,  when  midnight  mass  is  being  celebrated  at 
the  Pontifical  High  Altar  before  the  King  and  Queen. 
Once  more  we  seem  to  see  the  splendour  of  that  shrine, 
the  value  of  the  jewels  and  the  ornaments  whereon  were 
reckoned  by  tens  of  thousands  of  pounds— now  flashing 
and  gleaming  under  the  glow  of  numberless  candles  shed- 
ding light  over  the  wondrous  scene, — now  wellnigh  con- 
cealed by  the  rolling  clouds  of  incense  that  rise  like  a 
holocaust  heavenwards.  We  hear  the  sweet  voices  of  the 
choristers  rising  and  falling  in  cadence,  the  storm  of  music 
that  rolls  overhead  from  the  great  organ,  and  the  sudden 
hush  of  the  mighty  throng  of  worshippers  as  the  elevation 
of  the  Host  takes  place. 

But  not  alone  the  fashionable  life  at  Court  or  the  ornate 
ecclesiastical  ritual  finds  a  place  in  the  verse  of  this  great 
poetical  artist.  The  High  Street  and  the  Canongate  of  the 
Edinburgh  of  the  sixteenth  century  rise  again  before  us  in 
vision  as  we  read.  We  see  the  towering  tenements  with 
their  fronts  of  polished  ashlar,  or  of  timber  from  the 
Boroughmuir,  and  their  '  forestairs,'  or  outside  flights  of 
steps,  whereon  lords  and  ladies  stand  to  gossip  and  to  flirt 
after  their  12-0'clock  dinners.  We  note  also  the  sign-poles 
of  those  merchants  apostrophised  by  Dunbar,1  whose 
'  booths '  are  in  evidence  everywhere,  clustering  like  bees 
round  the  walls  of  the  collegiate  Church  of  St.  Giles. 
Once  more  there  is  brought  home  to  us  that  vivid  picture 
of  city  life  drawn  with  such  supreme  skill  and  picturesque- 
ness  in  his  Address  to  the  Merchants  of  Edinburgh.  The 
very  figures  seem  animate  in  that  bustling  crowd  which  fills 

1  Address  to  the  Merchants. 


86  FAMOUS  SCOTS 

the  thoroughfares— those  thoroughfares  down  which  none 
could  pass  without  having  their  nostrils  saluted  with  '  the 
stink  of  haddocks  and  of  skate,'  and  without  having  their 
ears  deafened  by  the  innumerable  street  cries,  or  by  the 
scoldings  of  carlines  flyting  and  fleeching— those  thorough- 
fares, like  that  'stinkand  style,'1  the  houses  of  which  'keep 
the  light  from  your  parish  kirk,'  and  which  seem  planted 
in  their  position  for  no  other  reason  than  to  congest  the 
stream  of  traffic  at  the  least  convenient  place. 

We  are  led  by  our  guide  down  past  the  High  Cross, 
where  gold  and  silver  should  have  been  sold,  but  where, 
alas  !  we  discover  only  curds  and  milk,  past  the  '  Butter 
Tron,'  where  cluster  the  butter-wives,  with  the  noisy  sellers 
of  'cockles  and  wilks,'  and  those  white  meal-puddings 
called  'Jock  and  Jame.'  The  headlong  merriment  and 
good-humoured  horse-play  increases  the  nearer  we  approach 
Holyrood.  Street  minstrels  hoarsely  bawl  out  of  tune  the 
two  airs— their  sole  repertoire — 'Now  the  day  dawns,'  and 
'  Into  June ' ;  the  apprentices  of  the  tailors,  the  shoemakers, 
and  '  the  other  viler  crafts,'  shouting  the  excellences  of  their 
masters'  wares,  add  to  the  perpetual  Babel ;  while  the  vast 
army  of  beggars,  of  which  the  burgh  is  but  a  nest,  molest 
honest  people  with  their  persistent  cries  for  alms,  so  that 
'  one  may  not  walk  the  streets  in  comfort  through  the  im- 
portunities of  the  crooked,  the  blind,  and  the  lame.' 

Yet  cheek  by  jowl  with  the  beggar  in  rags  passes  the 
haughty  noble  followed  by  his  armed  retainers ;  the  great 
ecclesiastic  too,  in  dress  as  rich  as  the  proudest  of  the 
nobility,    muttering   as    he    walks    meaningless    benedicites 

1  The  block  of  buildings  afterwards  called  the  Luckenbooth-. 


WILLIAM  DUNBAR  87 

in  response  to  requests  for  his  blessing ;  also  the  ruffling 
gallant  in  slashed  doublet  and  scarlet  hose,  ogling  amor- 
ously the  fair  ones  who  from  out  their  furred  hoods  flirt  as 
persistently  and  bewitchingly  as  their  descendants  of  to- 
day. Oh,  it  is  a  wondrous  picture ;  so  absolutely  true  to 
life  that  we  almost  think  we  can  see  the  brilliant  scene 
before  us  changing  and  rechanging,  arranging  and  rearrang- 
ing its  elements  with  kaleidoscopic  rapidity.  To  those 
grand  old  streets  of  the  Edinburgh  of  to-day  the  associa- 
tions of  four  centuries  seem  to  cling.  They  furnished 
Ramsay  with  the  materials  for  his  vivid  panoramic  sketch 
of  the  Edina  of  his  day,  they  furnished  Claudero  and 
Robert  Fergusson  with  theirs,  and,  mightiest  of  all,  the 
great  Wizard  of  the  North  himself  with  his.  But  as  vivid 
and  lifelike  as  any  of  these  are  those  pictures  of  the  Edin- 
burgh of  the  first  decade  of  the  sixteenth  century,  when 
Margaret  Tudor  came  north  to  wed  James  Stuart,  and  when 
the  Scots  Thistle  was  intertwined  with  the  English  Rose. 

The  results  accruing  from  the  union  in  question  may 
not  have  been  all  that  Dunbar  anticipated  or  foretold. 
He  built  his  hopes  high,  and  in  his  visions  of  the  future 
the  two  countries  were  represented  as  proceeding  hand  in 
hand  towards  a  political  millennium  of  peace,  progress,  and 
prosperity.  But  the  benefits  resulting  from  the  English 
alliance  were  not  to  be  wholly  nullified  even  by  the  per- 
sistent pigheadedness  and  perversity  of  James  iv.  Though 
the  most  harassing  and  devastating  invasions  Scotland 
had  ever  experienced  since  the  days  of  Wallace  and  Bruce 
were  inflicted  on  the  unhappy  country  by  the  'loving 
brother  of  "the  English  Rose"' — invasions  in  which  the 


88  FAMOUS  SCOTS 

Earl  of  Hertford  literally  '  harried  the  land  from  Forth  to 
Tweed,'  and,  with  the  zeal  of  Reforming  Protestantism, 
sent  the  fires  of  such  exquisite  specimens  of  early  ecclesi- 
astical architecture  as  the  Abbeys  of  Melrose,  Dryburgh, 
Kelso,  and  Holyrood  blazing  up  to  heaven  as  a  testimony 
of  his  anti-Papal  orthodoxy,1  still  out  of  evil  was  to  come 
good,  and  exactly  one  hundred  years  thereafter,  on  a 
blustery  Saturday  night,  Sir  Robert  Carey  was  to  kneel 
at  the  bedside  of  James's  great-grandson  in  the  same 
Holyrood  to  which  the  '  Merry  Monarch '  brought  his 
English  bride — to  kneel,  I  say,  and  to  hail  him  King  of 
England,  Scotland,  France,  and  Ireland,  in  consequence 
of  his  lineal  descent  from  the  'faire  Southern  Rose,'  as 
Gavin  Douglas  styled  Margaret  Tudor.  And  from  the 
Union  of  the  Crowns  has  resulted  that  political  Union 
from  which  Scotland  to-day  reaps  benefits  so  incalculable.2 

From  the  year  1502  until  the  terrible  day  of  Flodden 
Dunbar's  life  was  spent  peacefully  atCourt  'breiving  ballates' 
for  the  amusement  and  delight  of  the  monarch  and  his  Court. 
But  he  had  now  another  reader,  who,  if  she  could  give  him 
nothing  else,  gave  him,  like  Desdemona,  '  a  world  of  sighs, 
when  he  did  speak  of  some  distressful  stroke,'  and  laughed 
gleefully  at  his  headlong  humour  and  hilarity.  The  very  fact 
that  he  had  such  an  admirer  of  his  genius  put  him  on  his 
mettle.  If  previous  to  1502  Dunbar  wrote  well,  his  work 
subsequent  to  that  date  is  infinitely  better,  evincing  the 
presence  of  a  new  element  in  his  verse  which  previously 
had  no  place  therein.     That  new  element  was  love. 

To  this  period  must  be  assigned,  amongst  others,  such 

1  Burton,  Tytler,  and  Mackenzie. 

2  Hume  and  Smollett's  England ;  Pitscottie  ;  Rymer's  Foedera* 


WILLIAM  DUNBAR  89 

historically  important  poems  as  Beauty  and  the  Prisoner, 
The  Visitation  of  St.  Francis,  that  infinitely  humorous 
autobiographic  revelation,  The  Dream,  one  of  Dunbar's 
noblest  allegorical  pieces,  and  the  witty  yet  biting  satire, 
The  Fenyeit  Friar  of  Tung/and,  written  to  expose  the  ad- 
venturer, John  Damien,  who  wormed  himself  into  the  good 
graces  of  the  King  so  effectually  as  to  be  appointed  Abbot 
of  Tungland  in  1504.  To  this  period  likewise,  I  think,  we 
may  attribute  that  little  group  of  didactic  poems  wherein  our 
poet's  power  of  philosophic  reasoning  is  evinced  in  a  very 
admirable  manner,  viz.  In  Asking  Soivld  Discretionn  be, 
Discretioun  of  Givifig,  and  Discretioun  in  Taking.  In 
these  Dunbar  consoles  himself  on  being  overlooked,  when 
favours  were  being  lavishly  distributed  among  the  courtiers, 
with  the  reflection  that  if  his  reward  does  not  come  now  it 
will  reach  him  on  some  future  occasion. 

Probably  as  a  result  of  the  earnest  solicitation  of  the 
Queen,  Dunbar  received  a  hint  that  James  contemplated 
presenting  him  to  a  benefice  at  the  first  favourable  oppor- 
tunity. In  that  case  the  necessity  was  imperative  that  he 
should  resume  his  clerical  office  and  dress.  Though  there 
may  have  been  some  little  irritation  shown  by  the  monks 
of  the  Observantine  Monastery  of  the  Grey  Friars  when 
their  brilliant  brother  assumed  the  secular  character,  his 
offence  was  not  unforgivably  dire  in  these  years  of  an  easy- 
going, pluralistic  absentee  clergy,  one-half  of  whom  never 
set  eyes  on  their  benefices  from  year's  end  to  year's  end.1 
Accordingly  Dunbar  was  duly  received  back  into  the  Order, 

1  Early  Scottish  History  atid  Literature,  by  J.  M.  Ross  ;  Sketches  of 
Early  Scottish  History,  by  Cosmo  Innes ;  John  Major's  History  of 
Scotland,  i.-vi.  (1518). 


go  FAMOUS  SCOTS 

probably  as  a  brother  unattached  to  any  house.  The 
immediate  result  of  this  is  seen  by  an  entry  which  occurs 
in  the  Treasurer's  book  :  '1504.  Item  the  xvii  day  of 
March — To  the  King's  offering  at  Maister  William  Dun- 
bar's first  mass  vii  French  Crowns,  or  £4,  18s.  in  Scottish 
money.'  From  the  amount  of  the  monarch's  offering  we 
may  gauge  the  extraordinary  esteem  in  which  Dunbar 
was  held  by  the  gay  monarch.  Two  crowns  were  reckoned 
an  excellent  'handsel'  of  the  new  priest's  position.  All 
the  money  on  such  an  occasion  was  handed  over  to  the 
celebrant,  and,  if  he  were  popular,  as  Dunbar  undoubtedly 
was,  the  sum  collected  oftentimes  attained  a  large  amount. 
We  have  no  means  of  ascertaining  what  it  was  on  the  im- 
portant occasion  under  notice.  If  the  others  present  when 
William  Dunbar  celebrated  mass  for  the  first  time — pro- 
bably in  the  Abbey  of  Holyrood,  or  mayhap,  at  the  instance 
of  generous  Gavin  Douglas,1  in  the  Collegiate  Church  of 
St.  Giles — took  their  cue  from  the  King,  our  impecunious 
poet,  who  shortly  before  had  been  complaining  of  the 
manner  in  which  '  my  painful  purse  so  prickles  me,'  would 
once  in  his  life  at  least  have  had  a  purse  full  to  overflowing. 
Alas !  alas  !  William  Dunbar,  like  many  another  rare  genius, 
found  his  'painful  purse'  prickle  him  many  times  between 
the  terminal  poles  of  the  cradle  and  the  grave. 

But  a  further  mark  of  the  King's  favour  reached  him 
a  year  or  two  afterwards.  In  1507  his  pension  was  aug- 
mented to  ^20  per  annum — an  exceedingly  welcome 
addition  to  the  poet's  meagre  resources.  The  Epitha- 
lamium  had  received  its  recompence  ! 

1  Gavin  Douglas  and  Dunbar,  according  to  tradition,  were  friends  in 
earlier  years,  but  quarrelled  over  some  trifling  matter. 


CHAPTER    VIII 

AT   THE    BRILLIANT   COURT   OF    SCOTLAND'S 
'MERRY    MONARCH' 

The  last  eight  years  in  the  reign  of  James  iv.  marked  the 
most  brilliant  epoch  in  the  history  of  Scotland  as  an  inde- 
pendent kingdom.  Commerce,  Literature,  Science,  the 
Arts,  all  flourished  in  a  most  remarkable  degree,  being 
fostered  by  the  enlightened  tastes  of  the  great  monarch. 
As  Laing  says,1  'The  accounts  of  the  Lord  High  Treasurer, 
while  they  exhibit  numberless  instances  of  his  prodigality 
in  encouraging  and  rewarding  those  who  contributed  to 
the  King's  own  personal  gratification  (pantomimic  exhibi- 
tions, pipers,  fiddlers,  jesters,  and  common  minstrels,  as 
well  as  foreign  impostors  and  mere  pretenders  to  science), 
and  present  a  singular  picture  of  his  daily  occupations,  at 
the  same  time  show  that  the  monarch  was  a  munificent 
encourager  of  the  useful  arts,  and  that  his  liberality  dis- 
played itself  in  acts  of  charity  and  kindness  to  his 
domestic  servants.  He  also  appears  to  have  expended 
large  sums  of  money  in  building  or  adorning  the  royal 
palaces  of  Holyrood,  Linlithgow,  Stirling,  and  Falkland, 
in  the  erection  of  religious  foundations,  in  the  prosecution 

1   Laing's  Life  of  Dunbar  ;  also  Schipper  and  Mackay. 

01 


92  FAMOUS  SCOTS 

of  maritime  enterprises,  and  in  the  extension  of  commerce ; 
while  the  internal  prosperity  of  the  country  was  essen- 
tially promoted  by  a  strict  and  impartial  administration 
of  justice.' 

Until  1509  Dunbar's  relations  with  his  sovereign  were 
those  of  a  humble  though  intimate  friend.  By  the  poet, 
the  'monarch'  was  never  lost  sight  of  in  the  friend,  how- 
ever free  and  easy  might  be  the  relations  on  which  they 
stood  towards  each  other.  Though  he  might  sport  and  jest 
with  him  the  one  moment,  he  was  ready  the  next  to  read 
him  a  stern  rebuke  if  he  considered  he  was  doing  what 
was  wrong  or  derogatory  to  his  dignity.  In  1509,  how- 
ever, Dunbar's  tone  begins  to  change.  He  saw  individual 
after  individual  promoted  to  the  enjoyment  of  a  benefice, 
yet  he  was  always  left  out  in  the  cold.  In  vain  he  appealed 
to  the  King  in  every  conceivable  way  to  grant  him  this,  the 
summit  of  his  desires.  No  great  appointment  was  it  that 
he  coveted.  Formerly  he  had  set  his  mind  on  being  a 
bishop,  in  accordance  with  the  predictions  of  his  nurse; 
but  now  a  church,  thatched  with  heather  and  situated  in 
some  moorland  district,  would  have  appeared  a  paradise 
to  him.  Whether,  had  his  humble  wishes  been  granted, 
he  would  have  remained  content  in  his  banishment  from 
the  gaieties  of  Edinburgh  and  the  Court  we  have  the 
example  of  Herrick  at  Dean  Prior  to  warn  us  against 
jumping  to  hasty  conclusions.  It  is  amusing  to  consider 
with  what  ingenuity  and  address  he  varies  the  tone  of 
his  petitions  for  preferment.  In  general,  as  Schipper  says, 
he  appears  to  base  his  claims  for  promotion  to  a  benefice 
on  the  magnitude  of  the  services  he  had  rendered,  his 


WILLIAM  DUNBAR  93 

youth  having  been  spent  in  the  King's  employment.1  '  But 
whether  in  the  form  of  a  satirical  or  a  pathetic  appeal  to 
the  King,  or  simply  as  a  congratulation  on  the  New  Year, 
or  whether  under  some  humorous  personation,  he  brought 
forward  his  request,  still  the  burden's  song  was  a  benefice.'2 
Sometimes  his  indignation  is  aroused  when  he  conceives 
himself  slighted  aud  unduly  passed  over.  In  one  of  his 
'  Addresses  to  the  King,'  when  many  benefices  were  vacant, 
he  asks,  with  not  a  little  irritation  in  his  tone,  on  observing 
successive  preferments  heaped  on  the  same  parties,  whether 
it  is  more  charity  to  give  drink  to  him  who  stands  in  need 
of  it,  or  to  fill  'a  full  man  till  he  burst,'  while  his  companion, 
who  by  the  way  is  every  whit  as  deserving  as  he  to  drink 
wine,  is  allowed  to  die  of  thirst.  As  the  years  flit  by,  and 
still  he  approaches  no  nearer  to  the  goal  of  his  hopes,  a 
bitter  note  of  complaint  and  upbraiding  begins  at  times 
to  strike  into  the  stately  music  of  his  verse.  The  nearer 
we  draw  to  Flodden  the  bitterer  it  becomes,  until  it  seems 
to  culminate  in  the  passionate  and  angry  Remonstrance 
to  the  King  written  in  15 10.  In  this  terrible  satire — 
and,  of  a  truth,  never  was  poem  before  or  after  ad- 
dressed to  monarch  couched  in  such  a  strain — what 
fierce  moral  indignation  we  witness !  After  reiterating 
all  the  flatterers  and  gold -seekers,  adventurers  and 
swindlers,  architects  and  shipbuilders,  astrologers  and 
minstrels,  coiners  and  tumblers,  that  came  in  for  the 
profuse  bounty  of  the  monarch,  while  he  received 
nothing,    he    suddenly   flashes    out    into    the   splendidly 

1  Schipper's   William  Dunbar:   Leien   und   Gedichte,   chap.    iii.    pp. 
104-132. 
-  Laing's  Dunbar. 


94  FAMOUS  SCOTS 

audacious  prophecy— verified,  however,  as  thoroughly  as 
Shakespeare's  about  his  verse  : — 

'And  though  that  I  among  the  lave, 
Unworthy  be  ane  place  to  have, 
Or  in  their  number  to  be  told, 
As  long  in  mind  my  work  shall  hold 
As  whole  in  every  circumstance, 
In  form,  in  matter  and  substance, 
Without  wearing  or  consumption, 
Rust,  canker,  or  corruption, 
As  any  of  their  worlds  all 
Suppose  that  my  reward  be  small. ' 

There  is  something  infinitely  pathetic  in  the  spectacle 
of  this  soaring  genius,  when  already  the  shadows  of  life 
were  lengthening  for  him,  when  the  frosts  of  the  '  fifties ' 
were  powdering  his  locks  with  the  snows  of  impending  age, 
being  compelled  to  stoop  to  expedients  so  humiliating  and 
unbecoming.  Seemingly  he  had  fully  made  up  his  mind 
either  to  obtain  some  satisfaction  from  the  monarch,  or  to 
retire  to  some  religious  house  wherein  to  end  his  days. 
That  his  efforts  were  at  length  in  a  measure  successful  is 
satisfactory  to  learn.  Probably  he  had  imparted  to  the 
Queen  his  intentions,  and  she  had  straightway  communi- 
cated the  matter  to  her  husband.  At  all  events  Dunbar  in 
another  poem  speaks  of  the  Queen  as  having  been  his 
'advocate,  both  fair  and  sweet.' 1  James,  with  that  princely 
generosity  which  always  characterised  him,  when  he  realised 
that  his  old  favourite  was  really  languishing  in  poverty,  and 
must  needs  leave  the  Court  unless  some  substantial  help 
were  given,  in  1510,  a  few  days  after  the  date,  it  may  be 
supposed,  of  the  Remonstrance,  ordered  his  pension  to  be 

1   To  the  King —  That  he  were  John  Thomson's  man. 


WILLIAM  DUNBAR  95 

increased  from  ^20  to  ^80  Scots,  a  very  substantial 
addition,  which  placed  the  bard  beyond  all  apprehension  on 
the  score  of  poverty.  But  there  is  no  question  that,  welcome 
though  the  increase  was,  he  would  have  infinitely  preferred 
if  it  had  come  in  the  form  of  a  stipend  from  a  benefice. 

Though  Ave  are  anticipating  somewhat  the  chronological 
sequence  of  the  events  in  Dunbar's  life,  this  appears  a 
suitable  place  to  answer  once  for  all  the  many  calumnies 
that  have  been  cast  on  the  poet's  memory  through  the 
manifest  reluctance  of  James  iv.  to  appoint  Dunbar  to  an 
ecclesiastical  office.  Several  writers,  and  these  scholars 
who  ought  to  have  better  recognised  the  significance  of 
outstanding  historic  facts,  have  asserted  that  the  cause  of 
this  reluctance  on  the  part  of  the  monarch  was  due  to  the 
scandalous  immorality  of  Dunbar's  life,  to  his  drunkenness, 
to  his  illicit  relations  with  Mrs.  Musgrave,  the  Queen's 
Lady  of  the  Bedchamber,  and  finally  to  the  fact  that  he 
had  several  illegitimate  children  living.  One  and  all  of 
these  are  unfounded  falsehoods.  Attention  the  most 
cursory  to  the  plain  evidence  offered  by  the  facts  of 
Dunbar's  life  would  have  completely  exploded  those  fairy 
tales  had  the  retailers  of  them  taken  the  pains  to  investi- 
gate the  matter.  In  the  first  place,  had  his  life  been 
so  scandalous,  Dunbar  would  not  have  been  re-admitted 
into  the  Observantine  division  of  the  great  Order  of  the 
Franciscan  Monks.  Of  all  the  religious  organisations  they 
alone  in  the  sixteenth  century  preserved  some  regard  for  the 
principles  of  morality  and  decency.  Again,  Dunbar  would 
not  have  been  permitted  to  celebrate  his  first  mass  in  the 
presence   of  the    King   and    Queen — an    honour   eagerly 


96  FAMOUS  SCOTS 

coveted — if  his  life  had  been  at  all  scandalous.  The  same 
argument  applies  to  his  relations  with  Mrs.  Musgrave, 
although  we  have  every  reason  to  believe  that  for  her 
Dunbar  cherished  a  deep  and  lifelong  passion  after  her 
arrival  in  Scotland  with  Margaret  in  1503.  She  had  been 
chosen  by  Henry  vn.  as  a  counsellor  and  friend  for  his 
young  daughter,  because  she  was  a  woman  of  unimpeach- 
able virtue  and  high  moral  principle.1  That  she  would  stoop 
to  folly  with  a  priest  is  so  utterly  inconceivable  that  it  does 
not  speak  much  for  the  perception  of  the  advocates  of  the 
theory  that  they  should  believe  a  woman  of  her  standing 
would  throw  away  all  her  worldly  advantages  without  some 
return  being  forthcoming.  Besides,  her  husband  was 
living,  to  wit,  Sir  John  Musgrave,  whose  name  occurs 
frequently  with  that  of  his  wife  in  the  books  of  the 
Treasurer  down  to  15 13,  when  on  the  war  breaking  out 
they  appear  to  have  returned  to  England.  Besides,  the 
terms  in  which  Dunbar  addresses  her  are  not  those  likely 
to  be  employed  by  a  successful  suitor  for  the  favours  of  the 
lady.  Although  he  styles  her  '  My  Heart's  Treasure '  and 
'  sweet  assured  foe,'  he  also  characterises  her  as  '  the  cruel 
breaker  of  my  heart  in  two,'  'the  final  ender  of  my  life  for 
ever,'  adding  '  Have  mercy,  love,  have  mercy,  Lady  Bright.' 
The  second  last  stanza,  to  my  mind,  settles  the  question — 

'  White  Dove,  where  is  your  sober  humbleness  ? 
Sweet  gentle  Turtle,  where  is  your  pity  went? 
Where  is  your  ruth  ?  the  fruit  of  nobleness, 
Of  womanhood  the  treasure,  and  the  rent : 
Vertue  is  never  put  out  of  meek  intent, 
Nor  out  of  gentle  heart  is  fundin  pity, 
Since  merciless  no  noble  wight  might  be.' 

1   Vide  Young's  Memoirs  of  the  Princess  Margaret's  Journey. 


WILLIAM  DUNBAR  97 

By  these  arguments,  I  think,  the  calumnies  against 
Dunbar  are  completely  dissipated.  To  find  a  reason  for 
the  King's  persistent  delay  in  presenting  him  to  a  benefice, 
I  think  we  must  look  to  the  great  regard  cherished  by 
James  for  the  society  of  his  witty  laureate.  The  very 
thought  of  parting  with  him  was  seemingly  displeasing  to 
the  monarch.1  He  could  not  appoint  him  to  one  of  the 
metropolitan  benefices,  as  these  were  all  the  'preserves' 
of  the  great  families,  the  Douglases,  the  Hamiltons,  the 
Lennoxes,  and  others.  To  confer  on  him  any  other 
preferment  would  assuredly  mean  his  departure  from  the 
Court,  and  if  we  can  place  any  reliance  on  the  testimonies 
of  favour  already  shown  to  him,  that  was  a  contingency  to 
be  avoided  by  the  King  at  all  costs.  Had  Dunbar  been 
an  immoral  man  he  would  not  have  been  so  marked  out 
for  special  favour  as  to  have  his  pension  increased  on 
two  occasions.  To  my  mind  the  only  reason  for  the 
reluctance  of  James  to  appoint  Dunbar  to  a  benefice  lay 
in  the  fact  that  he  could  not  bring  himself  to  lack  the 
witty  sallies  and  the  bright  healthy  humour  of  the  brilliant 
poet. 

We  must  now  turn  our  steps  backward  somewhat  in 
order  to  take  note  of  the  publication  in  printed  form  of 
several  of  our  poet's  works.  Of  the  establishment  of 
Chepman  and  Myllar's  printing-press  in  Edinburgh  we 
have  already  made  mention.  In  1508,  however,  among 
the  first  books  issued  from  the  new  press  was  a  volume  of 
poetry  containing  in  all  eleven  distinct  pieces.     Five  out 

1  Laing's  Dunbar,     Vide  also  Sheriff  Mackay's  excellent  work  for  this 
whole  period  of  Dunbar's  life. 


98  FAMOUS  SCOTS 

of  the  eleven  separate  publications  were  poems  by  William 
Dunbar,1  viz.  The  Golden  Targe,  The  Fly  ting  of  Dunbar 
and  Kennedy,  The  Ballad  of  Lord  Barnard  Stewart,  The 
Twa  Maryit  Women  and  the  Wedo,  The  Ballad  of  Kind 
Kittock,  The  Testament  of  Andrew  Kemiedy,  and  finally 
The  Lament  for  the  Makars.  That  the  poet  superintended 
the  passing  of  these  poems  of  his  through  the  press  is  more 
than  probable,  and  the  fact  must  have  sent  a  strange  thrill  of 
joy  through  him  when  he  realised  that  at  last  his  works  were 
to  be  distributed  throughout  the  country,  nay,  throughout 
all  countries,  by  means  of  an  agency  whose  power  of 
reproduction  was  apparently  illimitable.  His  prophecy 
was  assuredly  beginning  to  work  out  its  fulfilment. 

From  the  testimony  of  the  La?nent  for  the  Makars  we 
learn  that  Dunbar  received  a  severe  warning  in  1508  that 
his  health  was  no  longer  what  it  once  was.  He  suffered  at 
that  date  from  a  dangerous  illness,  from  the  effects  of 
which  he  did  not  recover  for  some  time.  In  consequence 
he  became  exceedingly  low-spirited,  and  in  his  dejection 
penned  that  immortal  elegy  which,  had  Dunbar  written 
nothing  else,  would  have  placed  him  in  the  very  front  rank 
of  British  poets.  Its  pathos  is  so  subtle  yet  so  over- 
powering, the  music  of  its  rhythm  so  faultless  and  so 
fascinating,  the  tenor  of  its  thought  so  lofty  and  inspired, 
and  the  effect  of  its  solemn  repetend,  Timor  mortis  conturbat 
me — The  fear  of  death  distresses  me,  so  overpowering,  that 
no  one  can  read  the  poem  without  experiencing  a  thrill  of 
awe.     '  We  see  the  once  gay  Dunbar,   now  advanced  in 

1  This  volume  is  now  in  the  Advocates'  Library,  Edinburgh.  It  was 
discovered  last  century  in  Ayrshire.  The  printing  is  very  poor,  the  text 
literally  swarming  with  errors. 


WILLIAM  DUNBAR  99 

years,  deprived  of  his  joyous  companions,  and  probably 

jostled  out  of  Court   by  younger  and   more  fashionable 

wits.'1     The  poet  feels  that  the  time  cannot  be  far  distant 

when  the  Church's  sublime  service  for  the  dead,  from  which 

the  recurring  burden  is  taken,  would  be  chanted  over  him, 

as  it  had  been  over  so  many  of  his  contemporary  '  Makars,' 

and  he  shuddered  as  he  regarded  the  prospect.     The  poem 

has  a  distinct  poetic  affinity  with  Thomas  de  Celano's  terrible 

dirge — 

'  Dies  irae,  dies  ilia, 
Solvet  saeclum  in  favilla,' 

— and  it  is  no  despite  to  the  latter  sublime  composition  to 
be  placed  side  by  side  with  the  former. 

From  the  Lament  we  obtain  a  valuable  catalogue  of 
those  Scots  singers  who  had  flourished  either  prior  to 
Dunbar,  or  been  contemporaries  of  his  earlier  years, — 
Heryot  and  Andrew  of  Wyntoun,  Maister  John  Clerke, 
James  Affleck,  Holland,  Sir  Mungo  Lockhart  of  the  Lee, 
Sir  Gilbert  Hay  and  Blind  Harry,  Alexander  Trail  and 
Patrick  Johnstoun,  Mersar  and  Rowl  of  Aberdeen,  Robert 
Henryson  and  Sir  John  the  Ross,  Quintin  Shaw  and  Walter 
Kennedy ;  but  three-fourths  of  them  are  destitute  entirely 
of  any  significance  to  give  them  identity  or  personality.  No 
wonder  that  Dunbar  felt  that  life  was  slipping  away  from 
him,  and  that  the  last  great  Enemy  was  ever  drawing 
nearer  to  him.  When  so  many  had  been  taken,  how  could 
he  hope  to  escape  ?  Sooner  or  later  he  would  reach  the 
place  where  that  Shadow  feared  of  man  sat  waiting  and 
watching  for  him,  at  whose  icy  touch  the  lofty  and  the 

1  Lord  Hailes. 


ioo  FAMOUS  SCOTS 

lowly,    the    prince    and    the    peasant,    bow    their    head 
obediently  and  pass  within  the  Silence  ! 

Solemn  indeed  are  the  closing  stanzas  of  this  mighty 
threnody — worthy  to  rank  beside  the  noblest  elegies  the 
world  has  yet  seen.  The  pathos  becomes  well-nigh  over- 
whelming, as  after  having  recounted  the  departure  behind 
the  veil  of  all  those  whom  he  held  dear  of  old,  he  breaks 
into  the  anguished  moan  of  the  concluding  lines — 

'  Since  he  has  all  my  brethren  tane, 
He  will  not  let  me  live  alane, 
By  force,  I  maun  his  next  prey  be  ; 
Timor  mortis  conturbat  me. 

Since  then  for  Death  remede  is  none, 
Best  is 't  that  we  for  Death  dispone, 
After  our  death  that  live  may  we  ; 
Timor  mortis  conturbat  me.' 


CHAPTER    IX 

THE   YEARS    IMMEDIATELY    PRECEDING    FLODDEN 

We  are  now  rapidly  approaching  that  great  crisis  in  Scots 
history  whereby  the  shadow  on  the  dial  of  time  was  put 
back  quite  half  a  century.  If  James  iv.  had  not  rushed 
so  rashly  on  his  doom  at  the  fatal  field  of  Flodden  by 
permitting  his  chivalry  and  the  wiles  of  the  seductive  Lady 
Ford  of  Wark  to  induce  him  to  leave  his  advantageous 
ground  to  fight  on  equal  terms  on  the  plain,  the  history 
of  Scotland  might  have  had  to  be  written  from  an  entirely 
different  standpoint.  The  death  of  James  iv.  ended  the 
Augustan  age  of  the  Scottish  monarchy.  In  August  15 13 
Scotland  was  still  in  the  enjoyment  of  all  those  social, 
intellectual,  and  commercial  privileges  won  for  her  by  the 
genius  of  her  strong-handed  monarch  and  the  industry 
of  her  sons ;  by  September  the  country  had  been  thrown 
back  into  that  anarchy  that  was  rampant  during  the  long 
minority  of  James  11.  '  Woe  to  thee,  O  land,  when  thy 
king  is  a  child '  was  never  to  be  more  terribly  demonstrated 
than  in  the  minority  of  James  v.,  when  the  Douglas 
ambition  reached  its  height.1 

All  these  evils,  however,  were  still  in  the  future,  and 
never  did  the  country  seem  more  peacefully  prosperous, 

1  Burton  and  Maitland.     Cf.  Pitscottie. 

101 


102  FAMOUS  SCOTS 

never  was  it  making  more  rapid  strides  along  the  best  lines 
of  progress  and  development,  as  it  did  in  the  three  years 
immediately  preceding  Flodden.  Henry  and  James  were 
excellent  friends,  despite  the  tiffs  they  periodically  had, 
and  the  long  centuries  of  enmity  seemed  at  last  at  an 
end,  when  from  Italy  there  rolled  up  that  thundercloud 
which  was  to  wreck  the  peace  of  Scotland.  A  few  years 
before  Pope  Julius  n.  had  seized  the  territories  of  Parma 
and  Piacenza  in  Upper  Italy,1  and  added  them  to  the 
already  extensive  dominions  of  the  Church.  Louis  xn., 
however,  had  already  had  his  eye  upon  them.  The  Pope, 
afraid  of  losing  them,  flattered  the  young  King  Henry  vm. 
of  England  into  attacking  Louis  in  France,  calculating  that 
the  latter  having  his  hands  full  in  France  would  not  think 
of  meddling  him  in  Northern  Italy.  But  Louis  and  his 
Queen  played  the  same  game  on  Henry  as  the  Pope  had 
played  on  him.  James  iv.  was  induced  by  the  Queen's 
gage  d'amour  '  to  ride  one  day's  journey  into  England ' 
and  strike  a  blow  for  'his  lady.'  And  to  please  a  woman, 
who  was  simply  using  him  as  a  tool,  James  was  ready  to 
risk  crown,  Queen,  and  life  itself. 

I  mention  these  facts  because  again  and  again  Dunbar 
refers  to  them,  not  directly,  but  by  implication,  in  the  poems 
of  these  later  days.  He  was  one  of  the  few  who  stoutly 
defended  the  policy  of  cultivating  good  relations  with 
England.2  During  those  last  years  of  peace,  when  the 
flush  of  prosperity  was  at  its  fairest,  when  Margaret  still 
swayed  her  husband's  heart,  and  at  the  Scots  Court  none 

1  Ranke's  History  of  the  Popes,  vol.  i.  p.  42. 

2  Mackay's  Life  of  Dunbar. 


WILLIAM  DUNBAR  103 

were  more  welcome  than  the  ambassadors  of  England, 
Dunbar,  through  his  verse,  endeavoured  as  far  as  possible 
to  incline  the  scales  in  favour  of  the  English  alliance. 
Probably  this  was  the  secret  of  his  great  popularity  with  the 
Queen.  In  the  fine  poem  written  the  very  year  of  Flodden, 
No  Treasure  avails  without  Gladness,  he  strongly  incul- 
cates the  duty  of  living  at  peace  with  all  men — 

'  Follow  on  peace,  flee  trouble  and  debate, 
With  famous  folks  hold  thou  thy  company  : 
Be  charitable  and  humble  in  thine  estate, 
For  worldly  honour  lasteth  but  a  cry.' 

But  I  am  once  more  running  ahead  of  the  story  of  our 
poet's  life.  In  the  year  15  n  the  Queen  had  undertaken 
a  pilgrimage  to  St.  Duthac's  of  Tain — a  shrine  exceedingly 
popular  in  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries.1  On 
returning  she  paid  a  visit  to  the  town  of  Aberdeen,  where 
she  received  a  reception  so  splendid  that  Dunbar,  who 
accompanied  her,  was  ordered  to  celebrate  the  proceed- 
ings in  verse  as  a  testimony  of  Her  Majesty's  gratitude. 
The  greatest  preparations  had  been  made  by  the  towns- 
people to  do  honour  to  the  illustrious  visitor,  and  an 
amusing  proclamation  still  stands  in  the  Burgh  Records 
of  the  period  as  having  been  made  by  '  the  Belman,  wha 
wes  ordainit  to  pass  through  the  hail  toune  and  command 
and  charge  all  manner  of  persones  that  hes  any  middens 
upon  the  forgait  before  their  gates,  and  doors,  to  devoid, 
redd,  and  cleanse  the  same  betwix  this  and  Sonday,  under 
the  pain  of  xl.s.,  and  also  to  remove  all  swine  cruiffs  from 
the  High  Street  under  the  penalty  of  the  swyne   being 

1  Mackay's  Introduction  and  Life. 


io4  FAMOUS  SCOTS 

escheated  and  a  fine  of  viij.s.'  A  sum  of  ^200  was 
arranged  to  be  raised  as  a  propine  or  gift  to  Her  Majesty, 
and  commissioners  were  appointed  to  grant  certain  tacks  or 
leases  in  reversion,  and  also  to  let  the  rights  of  the  fishings 
belonging  to  the  community  for  that  purpose.  Further 
resolutions  were  passed  for  cleaning  and  adorning  the 
town,  hanging  the  streets  with  arras  and  tapestry. 
Altogether  the  inhabitants  seem  to  have  incurred  a  degree 
of  expense  considerably  beyond  their  means.1 

Dunbar's  poem  gives  us  an  admirable  picture  of  the 
proceedings  as  viewed  by  an  eye-witness.  Never  is  our 
poet  seen  to  greater  advantage  than  when  describing  a 
pageant  such  as  this.  His  laudatory  apostrophe  to  the 
town  of  Aberdeen  is  not  so  well  known  as  it  should  be — 

'  Blythe  Aberdeen,  thou  beryl  of  all  townis, 
The  lamp  of  beauty,  bounty,  and  blytheness  ; 
Unto  the  heaven  upheaved  thy  renown  is 
Of  virtue,  wisdom,  and  of  worthiness  ; 
High  notit  is  thy  name  of  nobelness 
Into  the  coming  of  our  lusty  quene, 
The  well  of  wealth,  good  cheer  and  merryness  : 
Be  blythe  and  blissful,  burgh  of  Aberdeen.' 

The  procession,  as  described  by  Dunbar,  was  splendid 
in  the  extreme.  The  Queen  was  met  by  the  magistrates, 
'  richlie  arrayit,  as  became  them  to  be,'  and  escorted  into 
the  town,  four  young  gentlemen  holding  a  pall  of  crimson 
velvet  over  her,  while  the  thunder  of  cannon  was  heard 
all  along  the  route.  Another  fair  procession  met  her  at 
the  city  gate,  which  led  her  up  to  the  several  masques 
that  were  got  up  to  greet  her  at  different  parts  of  the  town. 

1  Schipper's  Poems  of  William  Dunbar. 


WILLIAM  DUNBAR  105 

Thus  she  encountered  the  Holy  Virgin,  then  the  Three 
Kings  of  the  East  offering  Gold,  Incense,  and  Myrrh  to 
the  infant  Christ,  after  that  Adam  and  Eve  expelled  from 
Paradise.  Then  patriotism  received  its  tribute.  Robert 
Bruce,  the  national  hero  of  the  Scots  people,  was  to  be 
seen  as  a  crowned  king  in  a  succeeding  masque,  followed 
by  all  the  noble  Stuarts  who  came  after  him.  Then  hom- 
age was  paid  to  the  beauty  of  the  Queen  by  twenty-four 
beautiful  young  ladies,  all  splendidly  clothed  in  green,  who 
came  singing  and  playing  on  timbrels  to  meet  her,  followed 
by  the  great  barons  of  the  neighbourhood  with  their  ladies. 
Amid  the  cheers  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  town  Her  Majesty 
was  conducted  through  the  streets,  all  hung  with  tapestry, 
while  the  fountain  at  the  High  Cross  flowed  with  wine,  to 
her  lodgings,  where,  as  a  last  surprise,  a  cup  heaped  with 
gold  coins  was  offered  to  her  as  a  propine. 

Dunbar  appears  to  have  enjoyed  himself  thoroughly  during 
his  trip  with  the  Queen.  The  whole  tone  of  the  poem  is 
one  of  pleasure  and  delight,  and  his  advice  to  the  Queen, 

'Therefore  so  long  as  Queen  thou  bearest  crown, 
Be  thankfull  to  this  burgh  of  Aberdeen,' 

is  dedicated  by  maxims  of  sound  State  policy.  She  had 
won  popularity ;  let  her  do  her  best  to  keep  it. 

On  returning  to  Edinburgh  Dunbar  appears  to  have 
discovered  that  some  of  his  enemies  in  his  absence  had 
been  slandering  him  to  his  royal  master.  For  a  time  even 
there  appears  to  have  been  a  coolness  existing  between 
Dunbar  and  his  sovereign.1      In  his  poem  Hoiv  shall  I 

1  From  his  poem  Of  Men  Evill  to  Please  we  learn  that  in  consequence 
of  this  coolness  Dunbar  received  no  Christmas  present. 


io6  FAMOUS  SCOTS 

Governe  me?  he  complains  bitterly  that,  do  what  he  liked, 

be  he  merry  or  be  he  sad,  attend  Court  or  keep  away  from 

it,  his  motives  were  misunderstood. 

'  If  I  be  seen  in  Court  owre  long, 
Then  will  they  murmur  them  amang, 
My  friendis  are  not  worth  a  flee, 
That  I  so  long  without  guerdon  gang. 
Lord  God,  how  shall  I  governe  me  ? 

If  Court  reward  then  purchase  I, 
Then  have  they  malice  and  envy, 
And  secretly  they  on  me  lee, 
And  do  me  injure  privily, 
Lord  God,  how  shall  I  govern  me  ? ' 

Probably  the  mischief  arose  out  of  Dunbar's  poem  on 
'Covetyce,'  in  which  he  lashed  the  vices  current  at  Court, 
by  lamenting  that  the  manly  amusements  in  which  the 
courtiers  used  to  excel,  and  the  King  pre-eminently  so, 
were  all  banished  from  it,  and  that  only  card-playing  and 
dicing  were  fashionable.  Schipper  suggested,  and  with 
reason,  that  the  King's  predilection  for  such  amusements 
increased  as  he  advanced  in  years.  But  seemingly  the 
estrangement  had  not  lasted  very  long,  for  in  his  poem 
Rule  of  Anis  Self,  written  towards  the  commencement 
of  15 1 2,  he  seems  to  imply  that  his  relations  with  the 
King  were  as  of  old.  His  maxim,  'He  ruleth  well  who 
well  himself  can  guide,'  might  be  assumed  by  many  an 
ethical  philosopher  as  summing  up  the  whole  of  morals 
from  the  yvwdi  o-eWor  of  Solon  to  the  Golden  Rule,  '  Do 
unto  others  as  thou  wouldst  they  should  do  unto  you.' 

During  the  year  15 12,  also,  Dunbar  seems  to  have  felt 
the  approach  of  age  coming  on  him,  slowly  it  might  be, 
but  still  too  surely  to  be  misunderstood.     The  gaieties  of 


WILLIAM  DUNBAR  107 

the  Court  began  to  pall  on  him,  and  with  this  feeling  his 
desire  to  be  settled  in  some  quiet  sphere  of  religious  work 
grew  daily  greater.  Not  by  him  was  the  wish  cherished 
to  pose  as  a  great  ecclesiastic.  Rather  did  he  long  for 
some  sequestered  country  nook,  even  though,  as  we  have 
noted  previously,  the  church  were  covered  with  thatch. 
In  his  exquisite  poem  on  'Content,'  he  seems  to  imply 
that  he  had  now  given  up  all  hope  of  high  preferment.1 
But  he  comforts  himself  with  the  consideration,  from 
which  Bunyan  might  have  borrowed  one  of  his  lyrics, 
'  If  we  naught  climb,  we  take  no  fall,' and  sets  himself  to 
be  satisfied  with  his  position  and  station.  He  concludes 
with  the  pithy  epigrammatic  maxim,  than  which  Rochefou- 
cauld himself  has  nothing  more  incisive :  '  He  has  enough 
that  is  content.'  Another  poem,  whose  date  is  assigned  to 
the  end  of  151 2  or  the  commencement  of  15 13  is  even 
more  significant  in  revealing  how  brief  man's  little  life- 
span was  now  appearing  to  the  lonely,  saddened  man.  In 
None  may  assure  in  this  World  he  laments  his  lost  youth, 
and  bewails  the  pains  of  age  which  are  stealing  on  him — 

'  Lord,  how  shall  I  my  days  dispone, 
For  lang  service  reward  is  none, 
And  short  my  lyfe  may  here  indure, 
And  lossit  is  my  time  bygone. 
Into  this  world  may  none  assure.' 

His  entreaties  to  the  King  to  be  allowed  to  retire  to  some 
quiet  country  parish,  where  he  might  'set  his  saul  rycht' 
with  his  Maker  before  the  last  great  summons  reached 
him  to  join  the  choir  invisible  are  pathetic  in  the  extreme. 
No   longer  does   he  complain  of  poverty.      The    King's 

1  Sehipper's  Dunbar. 


io8  FAMOUS  SCOTS 

bounty  had  placed  him  beyond  that.  His  wishes  were 
only  to  be  allowed  to  fill  a  niche  in  the  spiritual  hierarchy, 
where  he  could  'serve  God,  honour  the  King,  and  purge 
his  own  soul.'  I  am  inclined  to  disagree  with  Schipper's 
chronology  of  the  famous  poem  Sir,  yet  Remember,  and 
to  attribute  it  to  the  last  year  of  the  King's  life.  From 
the  internal  evidence  of  the  piece  the  reader  will  observe 
that  it  is  not  so  much  of  poverty  that  the  poet  now  com- 
plains, but  of  the  fact  that  men  the  most  unworthy  and 
unsuitable  are  preferred  to  benefices  before  him.  Even 
Jock  the  cattleman  is  able  to  take  his  choice  of  livings, 
while  Dunbar  can  only  say — 

'  And  when  that  age  now  does  me  grief 
Ane  simple  Vicar  I  can  not  be.' 

Therefore,  he  has  taken  the  neglect  so  much  to  heart,  he 
says,  that  a  '  deidly  malady '  has  seized  upon  him.  Not  so 
much  upon  merit  as  upon  mercy  does  he  go  in  claiming 
his  right  to  preferment,  as  appears  from  the  stanza  pre- 
viously cited — 

'  None  may  remede  my  malady, 
So  well  as  you,  Sir,  verily  ; 
For  with  a  benefice  ye  may  prief 
And  if  I  mend  not  hastily, 
Excess  of  thought  does  me  mischief.' 

Not  only  does  he  appeal  to  the  monarch  in  his  own 
name,  but  he  induces  his  friends,  and  especially  the  Queen, 
'  that  sweet  meek  rose,'  to  press  his  claims  upon  the  King 
that  he  might  be  allowed  to  retire  from  Court  to  a  bene- 
fice. It  is  only  just  to  suppose  that  had  he  lived  James 
would  have  acceded  to  the  longing  desire  of  his  faithful 
friend  and  servitour.     Though  he  might  resist  the  appeal 


WILLIAM  DUNBAR  109 

as  long  as  possible,  and  endeavour  to  satisfy  him  by  in- 
creasing his  pensions,  a  course  which  would  not  entail  the 
poet's  departure  from  the  Court,  still  when  he  saw  that 
Holyrood  no  longer  had  power  to  charm  and  please  the 
world-weary  man,  whose  locks  were  whitening  with  the 
snows  of  age,  doubtless  he  would  have  advanced  Dunbar 
to  the  summit  of  his  ambition — a  vicarship  in  some  quiet 
country  parish,  '  far  from  the  madding  crowd.'  But,  alas  ! 
whatever  he  may  have  been  contemplating  to  do  when 
he  returned  from  riding  his  one  day's  journey  into  England 
was  rendered  of  no  avail  by  the  terrible  disaster  of  Flodden. 
However,  as  we  shall  see,  there  is  strong  reason  to  believe 
that  the  Queen,  when  she  was  regent,  carried  into  effect 
what  it  may  have  been  the  intention  of  the  monarch  to 
do  when  he  came  back  in  triumph.  But  the  last  official 
mention  we  have  of  William  Dunbar  in  the  Treasurer's 
books  is  on  the  14th  May  15 13,  when  he  received  his 
usual  half-yearly  instalment  of  his  pension.  This  was 
three  months  before  the  King  set  out  for  Flodden.  The 
Treasurer's  accounts,  however,  from  August  8th,  15 13 
to  June  1  st,  15 1 5,  have  not  been  preserved.  In  those 
of  a  subsequent  date  the  name  of  William  Dunbar  does 
not  appear. 


CHAPTER   X 

THE    DARK    DAYS    OF    FLODDEN 

The  first  half  of  the  year  15 13  was  as  prosperous  as  its 
predecessors  in  Scotland.     Commerce  was  flourishing,  and 
Scots  vessels  were  trading  to  every  country  open  to  trade 
relations.      The  Scots  navy  was  at  this  time  regarded  as 
the  strongest  in  Europe.    Even  although  Sir  Andrew  Barton 
had  recently  been  defeated  and  slain  by  the  two  sons  of 
the  Earl  of  Surrey,  Lord  Thomas  and  Sir  Edward  Howard, 
in  a  naval  battle  in  the   Downs,   Scotland  possessed  the 
Great  Michael,  the  largest  warship  in  the  world  of  its  day. 
Walter  Chepman  was  busily  engaged  printing  off  all  the 
standard  works  of  the  period,  which  were  being  circulated 
amongst  the  nobility  and  gentry  of  the  country,  whereby 
intellectual    culture   was    greatly    promoted.      Into    some 
channel  the  spiritual  sympathies  of  the  nation  had  to  flow. 
Not  into  that  of  religion  could  the  newly  awakened  zeal 
of  the  country  discharge  itself.     The  Romish  Church  was 
every  year  becoming  further  divorced  from  the  great  heart 
of  the  people.     Sunk  in  sensuality,  worldly  pride,  the  most 
degraded  superstition,  and   an  ignorance   that  was   even 
lower  than  the  common  people  of  the  townships  of  Scot- 
land,  its  pretensions  to  teach  or  to  preach  religion  were 

ridiculed  and   mocked.      The  great  ecclesiastics,  such  as 
no 


WILLIAM  DUNBAR  in 

Blackadder,  Archbishop  of  Glasgow,  Forman,  Bishop  of 
Moray,  and  others,  were  practically  temporal  lords,  though 
they  arrogated  to  themselves  all  the  privileges  of  Church- 
men without  considering  themselves  bound  by  any  of  their 
responsibilities.  In  consequence,  in  15 13,  a  widespread 
irreligion  was  diffusing  itself  over  the  country  side  by  side 
with  the  advancing  culture.  Had  the  superstition  of  the 
whole  nation  been  less  profound,  the  result  would  have 
been  universal  atheism.  But  for  once  superstition  played 
the  part  of  an  angel  of  light. 

Such  was  the  position  of  affairs  when,  to  Dunbar's  dis- 
tress, intelligence  was  brought  to  Court  that  England  and 
Spain,  instigated  by  Pope  Julius  11.  and  his  successor,  the 
great  Leo  x.,  were  at  war  with  France.  With  the  keen 
prevision  of  a  statesman,  he  could  foresee  what  would 
follow.  France  had  not  extended  her  coveted  citizenship 
to  the  Scots  nation  for  nothing.  Before  many  days  had 
passed  his  apprehensions  were  verified.  Queen  Anne  of 
France,  wife  of  Louis  xn.,  sent  the  Sieur  de  Martignan 
with  her  gage  of  love,  a  richly  perfumed  and  jewelled 
glove,  accompanied  by  a  letter  in  which  she  styled  James 
'her  own  peculiar  knight,'  and  entreated  him  as  her  chosen 
champion  to  march  for  her  sake  one  day's  journey  into 
English  territory.1 

The  Court  was  immediately  broken  up  into  two  great 
factions.  There  was  first  the  English,  headed  by  the 
Queen,  whose  own  brother  was  to  be  the  object  of  her 
husband's  attack.      With    her   sympathised   all   the  older 

1  Pitscottie  informs  us  that  the  letter  was  accompanied  by  a  gift  of 
15,000  French  crowns — about  ^8000. 


ii2  FAMOUS  SCOTS 

nobles  and  barons,  who   knew  and   prized  the  value  of 
peace,  and  the  older  clergy,  headed  by  the  new  Archbishop 
of  Glasgow  (Beaton).    Of  this  party  William  Dunbar,1  both 
by  policy  and  inclination,  would  be  a  member,  the  object 
of  their  efforts  being  to  preserve  peace  between  Henry  vm. 
and  James  iv.,  by  dissuading  the  latter  from  acceding  to 
the  request  of  the  Queen  of  France.     The  other  side,  re- 
presented by  the  young  Archbishop  Stuart  of  St.  Andrews,2 
natural   son   of   the   King,    Forman,  Bishop    of   Moray,3 
and    most    of    the    younger    clergy  who    were    supposed 
to    be    secular   in    their   sympathies,    strongly   advocated 
the  maintenance  of  the  traditional  policy — '  no  amity  with 
England.'     With  this  party  the  King  was  in  open  agree- 
ment.     His  amorous  heart  had  been  set  on  fire  by  the 
Queen  of  France's  letter,  and  he  at  once  issued  a  pro- 
clamation   to    the    feudal    nobles   all   over    the   country, 
summoning    them    to   meet    on    the   Boroughmuir — the 
ground  now  covered  by  the  suburbs  of  Merchiston  and 
Morningside. 

From  the  poems  written  after  all  the  pitiful  tragedy  of 
Flodden  was  over,  we  can  see  that  Dunbar  had  done  all 
that  man  could  to  deter  the  monarch  from  his  mad 
scheme.  In  the  piece  addressed  to  the  '  Queen-Dowager ' 
he  alludes  with  the  utmost  delicacy,  yet  with  a  touching 

1  Cf.  Mackay's  Introduction,  which  is  here,  as  elsewhere,  of  the  greatest 
historic  value. 

2  The  friend  and  correspondent  of  Erasmus.  He  was  only  nineteen  at 
this  time. 

3  Forman  was  a  candidate  for  the  Archbishopric  of  Bourges,  and  was 
successful.  He  was  favoured  by  King  Louis  XII.,  and  the  ground  on 
which  the  latter  demanded  the  support  of  the  Chapter  was  the  signal 
service  Forman  had  done  to  France  by  bringing  about  the  invasion  of 
England  by  the  King  of  Scots.     See  Burton's  Scot  Abroad. 


WILLIAM  DUNBAR  113 

pathos,  to  the  efforts  he  had  made  to  persuade  the  King  to 

adopt  other  courses — 

'  I  me  commend  with  all  humility, 
Unto  thy  beauty  blissful  and  benign, 
To  whom  I  am  and  aye  shall  servant  be, 
With  stedfast  heart  and  faithful  true  meaning, 
Unto  the  dead,  to  whom  I  maid  pleiding.1 
And  for  whose  sake  I  shall  my  pen  address 
Songis  to  make  for  thy  recomforting, 
That  thou  may  live  in  joy  and  lustiness.' 

Owing  to  the  powerful  combination  against  it,  the  cause 
of  the  English  war  was  not  popular  in  Scotland.  All  kinds 
of  persuasions  were  tried  to  turn  James  from  his  resolu- 
tion. But  in  vain.  Supernatural  portents  even  were  not 
lacking.  Let  us  hear  what  Drummond  of  Hawthornden 
tells  us  of  the  matter :  '  After  the  army  had  mustered  in 
the  Borrowmuir  of  Edinburgh '  (a  field  then  spacious  and 
delightful  by  the  shades  of  many  stately  and  aged  oaks), 
'  about  the  midst  of  the  night  there  is  a  proclamation  heard 
at  the  Mercat  Cross  of  the  Town,  summonding  a  great  many 
burgesses,  gentlemen,  barons,  and  noblemen  to  appear 
within  forty  days  before  the  tribunal  of  one  "Plotcock." 
The  Provost  of  the  Town,2  in  his  Timber  Gallery, 
having  heard  his  own  name  cited,  cried  out  "That  he 
declined  that  Judicatory,  and  appealed  to  the  mercy  of  God 
Almighty."  But  that  was  not  all :  "  While  the  King,  full  of 
cares   and   perplexities,    in   the    Church    of  St.    Michael, 

1  '  Withouten  depairting,'  some  editions  read. 

2  This  is  a  mistake.  Richard  Lawson  of  Highriggs  was  Provost  from 
1504-8,  and  we  know  from  Pitscottie  (i.  266)  that  it  was  to  him  the  incident 
happened,  while  the  Provost  of  the  year  was  the  Earl  of  Angus,  who 
accompanied  the  King  to  Flodden  and  perished  there.  The  interim 
Provost,  in  the  absence  of  Angus,  was  Alexander,  Lord  Home,  Great 
Chamberlain  of  Scotland. 

II 


H4  FAMOUS  SCOTS 

Linlithgow,  heard  Evensong  (as  it  then  was  called),  while 
he  was  at  his  devotions,  an  ancient  man  came  in,  his  amber- 
coloured   locks   hanging    down   upon   his   shoulders,    his 
forehead  high  and  inclining  to  baldness,  his  garment  of 
azure   colour,  somewhat   long,  girded  about   him  with  a 
towel  or  Table  napkin,  of  a  comely  and  reverend  aspect. 
Having  enquired  for  the  King,  he  intruded  himself  into  the 
crowd,  passing  through  all  till   he  came  to  him;  with  a 
clownish  simplicity,  leaning  over  the  Canon's  Seat  where 
the  King  sate,   "  Sir  (said  he)  I  am  sent  hither  to  intreat 
you  for  a  time  to  delay  your  Expedition,  and  to  proceed 
no  further  in  your   intended  journey:    for  if  you  do  ye 
shall   not  prosper   in   your   Enterprise,   nor  any  of  your 
followers.     I  am  further  charged  to  warn  you,  if  ye  be  so 
refractory  as  to  go  forward,  not  to  use  the  acquaintance, 
company,  or  counsel  of  Women,  as  ye  tender  your  honour, 
life,  and  estate."     After  this  warning  he  withdrew  himself 
back  again  into  the  crowd.     When  service  was  ended,  the 
King  enquired  earnestly  for  him,  but  he  could  nowhere  be 
found,  neither  could  any  of  the  bystanders  (of  whom  divers 
did  narrowly  observe   him,   meaning   afterwards  to  have 
discoursed  further  with  him)  feel  or  perceive  how,  when, 
or  where  he  passed  from  them,  having  as  it  were  vanished 
among  their  hands.' 1 

Drummond  adds :  '  Nothing  was  the  King  moved  with 
these  advertisements,  thinking  them  scenick  pieces  acted 
by  those  who  hated  the  French  and  favoured  the  English 
faction,  though  they  were  so  boldly  and  to  the  life  per- 
sonated that  they  appalled  and  struck  with  fear  ordinary 

1  Drummond,  History  of  the  Five  Jameses. 


WILLIAM  DUNBAR  115 

and  vulgar  judgments,  as  Tragi-Comedies  of  Spirits.'  Now 
I  have  always  had  the  idea  that  Dunbar,  in  some  way  or 
other,  was  connected  with  this  scheme.  The  last  card 
which  the  Queen's  party  could  play  was  to  appeal  to  the 
superstitious  fears  of  the  King.  But,  alas  !  James  seemed 
to  penetrate  the  disguise.  Dunbar  certainly  was  privy  to 
some  secret  of  the  kind,  for  the  word  '  servant '  was  a 
peculiar  one  to  use  in  the  verse  we  have  quoted  above 
from  the  Ode  to  the  Queen-Dowager.  Be  this  as  it  may, 
their  efforts  were  entirely  unavailing,  and  in  a  few  days  the 
great  army  set  forward  on  its  march  for  the  Border. 

For  a  long  time  uncertainty  prevailed  whether  Dunbar 
might  not  have  accompanied  his  sovereign  to  the  field  of 
Flodden,  and  fallen  with  him  there,  seeing  that  no  mention 
was  thereafter  made  of  him  in  the  Treasurer's  books.  He 
had  courage  and  patriotism  enough  for  that,  and  the  theory 
was  mooted  that  James,  being  so  certain  of  victory  as  he 
was,  might  have  taken  Dunbar  with  him  to  celebrate  the 
triumph,  as  Edward  11. ,  under  similar  circumstances, 
brought  the  poetical  Carmelite  friar  Baston  to  the  battle 
of  Bannockburn.  How  the  whirligig  of  time  would  have 
brought  in  its  revenges  if  Dunbar,  like  Baston,  had  been 
captured,  and  been  obliged  to  ransom  himself  by  writing 
a  poem  on  the  victors  whose  prospective  rout  he  had  been 
brought  to  witness  ! 

But  there  seems  strong  presumption  in  favour  of  the 
theory  that  Dunbar  was  left  behind  to  comfort  the  Queen, 
who  had  begged  to  be  allowed  to  accompany  her  husband 
to  the  campaign,  hoping,  as  Drummond  and  Maitland 
assert,  to  be  able  to  influence  the  Earl  of  Surrey  in  favour 


n6  FAMOUS  SCOTS 

of  peace.  But  the  King  declined  to  allow  her  to  accom- 
pany him.  There  is  no  ground  for  believing,  notwith- 
standing the  subsequent  moral  deterioration  of  Margaret's 
nature  when  she  sank  into  the  position  of  a  mere  paid 
English  spy,  that  at  this  time  she  was  other  than  genuinely 
attached  to  her  husband,  and  feared  any  danger  happening 
to  him. 

Of  course  we  have  only  the  bare  records  of  history  to 
guide  us  with  regard  to  what  took  place  inside  the  walls 
of  the  capital  after  the  march  of  the  army,  and  while  those 
who  were  left  behind  were  awaiting  news  of  the  mighty 
battle  that  was  imminent.  All  contemporary  records 
describe  the  tension  as  terrible.  Scarce  a  house  was  there, 
'  gentle  or  simple,'  that  had  not  a  member  of  it  away  with 
the  King.  As  the  days  crept  on,  and  still  no  word  reached 
the  watchers  of  the  issue  of  the  battle,  anxiety  seems  to 
have  given  place  to  anguish.  Then,  to  quote  Aytoun's 
telling  lines — 

'  News  of  battle  !  who  hath  brought  it  ? 
News  of  triumph  ?  who  should  bring 
Tidings  from  our  noble  army, 
Greetings  from  our  gallant  King? 
All  last  night  we  watched  the  beacons, 
Blazing  on  the  hills  afar, 
Each  one  bearing  as  it  kindled, 
Message  of  the  opened  war  : 
All  night  long  the  northern  streamers, 
Shot  across  the  trembling  sky, 
Fearful  lights  that  never  beacon 
Save  where  kings  and  heroes  die. ' J 

Doubtless  the  horror,  the  misery,  and  distress  which  fell 
on  Edinburgh  when  at  last  the  terrible  truth  became  known 

1  Lays  of  the  Scottish  Cavaliers. 


WILLIAM  DUNBAR  117 

was  shared  to  the  full  by  William  Dunbar.  It  is  harder  to 
stand  and  wait  than  to  buckle  on  one's  armour  in  the  battle 
of  life  and  to  rush  into  the  fray.  Though  a  portentous 
silence  shrouds  all  the  sayings  and  the  doings  of  that  fate- 
ful time,  save  what  are  contained  in  the  barest  of  annals, 
one  can  conceive  all  the  more  vividly,  because  so  much  is 
left  to  the  imagination,  the  keen  edge  of  that  passionate 
pain  and  mental  torture,  that  invincible  longing  for  the 
return,  be  it  but  for  a  moment,  and  be  that  return  pur- 
chased by  periods  of  the  most  prolonged  physical  suffering, 
of  a  beloved  face  on  whose  lineaments  death  had  set  its 
seal,  and  whose  smile  was  to  lighten  the  gloom  of  life  for 
the  watcher  nevermore — all  these  feelings,  in  fine,  which 
afterwards  he  was  to  embody  in  the  noble  consolatory 
poem  The  Merle  and  the  Nightingale,  and  Of  Love 
Earthly  and  Divine.  Not  alone  to  the  stricken  Queen 
would  he  be  called  upon  to  render  consolation,  in  both  his 
spiritual  and  his  secular  capacities, — and  that  he  did  so  is 
manifest  from  the  Ode  to  the  Queen-Dowager, — but  to 
those  other  families,  of  whom  there  was  scarce  one  but 
was  mourning  the  loss  of  father,  brother,  husband,  son,  or 
mayhap  of  some  other  near  tie,  not  yet  sanctioned  by 
the  Church,  yet  as  binding  between  loving  hearts  as  if 
sealed  by  bell,  book,  and  candle. 

It  is  only  in  these  poems,  such  as  Ane  Orisoune,  when 
the  Governor  passed  into  France,  written  on  the  occasion 
when  the  Duke  of  Albany,  who  had  been  appointed 
Regent  of  the  country  in  the  name  of  James  v.,  went  for 
a  season  to  the  French  Court,  and  there  seemed  some 
uncertainty  whether  he  would  ever  return,  that  we  catch 


n8  FAMOUS  SCOTS 

a  glimpse  of  what  Dunbar  really  was  in  the  habit  of  doing 
with  his  glorious  gift  of  verse.  That  a  large  number  of  his 
pieces,  and  these  perhaps  his  finest,  were  lost  during  the 
miserable  confusion  of  the  post-Flodden  anarchy  is  almost 
certain.  Besides  acting  the  part  of  consoler  to  those 
bereaved,  he  probably  did  his  share  in  strengthening  the 
hands  of  the  Lord  Home,  Great  Chamberlain  of  the  city, 
who  had  been  appointed  Deputy  Provost,  in  maintaining 
order  and  in  preventing  the  citizens  lapsing  into  despair 
complete,  until  the  full  intelligence  of  the  disaster  reached 
them.  His  poems  only  give  us  hints,  without  any  direct 
statement  of  what  was  the  specific  object  of  the  efforts 
which  we  know  he  was  putting  forth  for  the  salvation  and 
succour  of  his  stricken  country.  In  all  probability  he  helped 
by  deed  as  well  as  by  word  in  the  erection  of  that  rampart 
or  city  wall  which  was  drawn  round  the  town  in  the  space 
of  a  few  days,  when  the  news  was  brought  to  Edinburgh 
that  the  victorious  English  army  was  hastening  towards 
the  Scots  capital.  With  a  feverish  energy,  men,  women, 
and  children,  hoary  patriarchs  on  whose  head  the  snows 
of  the  seventies  lay  deep,  as  well  as  tender  babes  scarce 
permitted  to  leave  their  mothers'  sides,  were  one  and  all 
eager  and  ready  to  take  a  share  in  the  work. 

There  was  only  one  gleam  of  glory  to  brighten  the 
universal  gloom  of  the  national  disaster,  and  that  lay  in 
the  fact  that  the  lives  of  Scotland's  bravest  and  best  had 
gone  out  in  a  blaze  of  splendid  courage.  All  day  long, 
when  the  battle  was  already  a  foregone  conclusion,  there 
was  no  thought  of  either  surrender  or  retreat  in  the  minds 
of  the  Scots  nobles.     One  by  one  they  fell  around  their 


WILLIAM  DUNBAR  119 

King,  standing  at  bay  like  a  wounded  lion,  doggedly 
desperate  and  sternly  defiant,  until  they  each  one  met 
his  fate.  To  break  that  ring  of  steel  by  any  other  means 
than  pouring  a  pitiless  hail  of  cloth-yard  arrows  into  its 
closely  packed  mass  was  more  than  the  Earl  of  Surrey 
could  effect,  while  for  every  Scots  life  that  was  extin- 
guished its  English  fellow  followed  it.  Only  the  great 
superiority  in  numbers,  when  the  English  reserves  were 
brought  up,  put  the  matter  beyond  a  doubt,  and  the  fall 
of  darkness  alone  saved  the  Scots  from  utter  extinction. 
As  it  was,  the  issue  was  left  undecided,  and  had  there  been 
a  general  left  on  the  Scots  side  to  draw  off  the  troops  that 
were  left  in  good  order,  in  particular  carrying  away  with 
them  the  artillery,  Flodden  field  might  have  gone  down 
to  history  as  a  drawn  engagement.  But  no  commander 
was  left.  The  English  occupied  the  ground  on  the  follow- 
ing day,  found  the  Scots  artillery  unguarded,  seized  it,  and 
of  course  justly  claimed  the  victory.1  The  Scots  forces 
dribbled  away  in  the  night.  When  morning  light  dawned 
the  ring  of  corpses  round  the  King  was  there — but  the 
living  had  disappeared.  They  had  wisely  retreated  across 
the  Border,  prepared  to  make  there  their  last  stand  in 
defence  of  their  hearths  and  homes.  But  Surrey  was  too 
wary  a  general  to  attack  a  foe  at  bay ;  besides,  his  army 
was  in  urgent  need  of  rest.  Therefore  he  slowly  retreated 
homewards.  But  some  days  elapsed  before  this  fact  was 
known  in  Edinburgh. 

The  suffering  which  Dunbar  must  have  passed  through 
during  this  terrible  period  has  not  been  recorded  in  his 

1  Cf.  Burton,  Maitland,  and  Mackenzie. 


120  FAMOUS  SCOTS 

verse  with  that  fulness  which  we  should  look  for.1  This 
fact  causes  me  to  think  that  we  have  received  only  a  very 
small  moiety  of  his  work.  That  he  should  not  have 
described  the  horror  of  the  time  could  only  have  resulted 
from  two  causes — either  he  must  have  accompanied  the 
King  to  Flodden  and  been  one  of  the  tale  of  dead,  com- 
prising one  archbishop,  two  bishops,  two  mitred  abbots, 
twelve  earls,  thirteen  peers,  five  eldest  sons  of  peers,  and 
of  gentlemen  over  three  thousand,  who  were  left  on  the 
field;  or  his  works  must  in  large  part  have  been  lost 
during  the  years  elapsing  between  his  death  and  the  per- 
manent establishment  of  printing  in  Scotland  by  Vautrol- 
lier  about  1580.  But  we  have  evidence  almost  absolute 
that  Dunbar  was  alive  in  15 17,  when  John,  Duke  of 
Albany,  who  in  15 15  had  been  chosen  regent  after  the 
widowed  Queen's  marriage  with  the  Earl  of  Angus,  had 
found  himself  compelled,  by  his  inability  to  restore  order  to 
the  kingdom,  to  return  to  his  estates  in  France.  Dunbar, 
as  Schipper  says,  must  have  been  deeply  affected  by  the 
distracted  state  into  which  the  country  had  been  thrown 
by  its  party  dissensions  after  the  King's  untimely  death, 
and  he  records  his  feelings  in  the  Orisoune,  when  the 
Governor  passed  into  France. 

As  soon  as  practicable  after  the  whole  of  the  sad  story 
had  been  brought  from  Flodden,  the  Scots  Estates  met 
and  appointed  the  Queen  as  temporary  regent  and  guardian 
to  the  young  Prince  James,  then  about  two  years  of  age. 
This  was  done  in  the  hope  that  the  fact  would  incline  her 
brother  to  be  magnanimous  and  merciful.2     Such  an  effect 

1  Paterson's  Life  and  Poems  of  1 1  'illiam  Dunbar.    -  Burton  and  Maitland. 


WILLIAM  DUNBAR  121 

the  appointment  to  some  extent  produced,  and  the  war,  in 
the  meantime  at  least,  was  not  renewed. 

The  interest  to  us,  however,  in  the  appointment  is  that 
Margaret  in  all  likelihood  used  the  power  she  had  to 
advance  the  interest  of  her  faithful  friend  and  laureate. 
When  the  first  poignancy  of  sorrow  was  past,  when  she 
was  urged  by  every  consideration,  both  public  and  per- 
sonal, to  come  forth  from  her  retirement  and  place  her 
hand,  feeble  and  wavering  though  it  was,  on  the  helm  of 
state,  it  is  only  just  to  suppose  that  those  who  had  com- 
forted her  in  her  sorrow  should  participate  in  her  advance- 
ment. Dunbar  was  assuredly  alive  at  this  time.  Only 
his  genius  could  have  produced  such  poems  as  Love 
Earthly  and  Divine  and  the  Orisoune.  We  are  either 
shut  up  to  that  conclusion,  or  to  the  alternative  that  there 
were  two  poets  living  at  this  period,  both  of  them  capable 
of  executing  work  of  a  quality  so  high.  The  very  idea 
is  preposterous.  Therefore,  I  consider  that  the  explana- 
tion given  by  Laing,  Schipper,  and  Mackay 1  of  the  cir- 
cumstance that  Dunbar's  name  appears  no  more  in  the 
Treasurer's  book  because  he  had  at  length  reached  the 
summit  of  his  ambition  in  his  later  years — a  benefice — to 
be  the  only  legitimate  conclusion  deducible  from  the  facts. 
His  pension  would  then  of  course  stop,  as  one  of  the 
conditions  of  it  when  conferred  was  that  on  the  recipient 
being  appointed  to  a  benefice  of  ,£100  the  pension  would 
cease.  I  do  not  see  that  any  conclusion  other  than  this 
would  really  meet  all  the  exigencies  of  the  case. 

1  See  Laing's  Dunbar,  Schipper's  Lebcn  unci  Gedichte,  and  Mackay's 

Introduction. 


122  FAMOUS  SCOTS 

After  the  disaster  of  Flodden  many  of  the  great  Church 
offices  were  vacant,  and  remained  so  for  some  time.  In 
August  1 5 14,  shortly  before  her  marriage  with  the  Earl 
of  Angus,  the  Queen-Dowager  wrote  a  letter  to  Pope 
Leo  x.  in  which  she  gives  a  list  of  all  the  great  benefices 
in  question,  and  whom  she  desired  to  appoint  to  them.1 
The  fact  that  Dunbar's  name  does  not  appear  there  is 
no  argument  that  he  did  not  receive  preferment.  Only 
the  greater  benefices  are  named,  such  as  Dunbar  could 
have  no  hope  of  receiving,  seeing  that  Gavin  Douglas, 
the  relative  of  the  man  she  was  about  to  marry,  had  great 
difficulty  in  securing  the  bishopric  of  Dunkeld,  after  being 
disappointed  of  the  abbacy  of  Aberbrothick  (Arbroath). 

At  last,  then,  in  his  fifty-third  or  fifty-fourth  year,  the 
weary  poet  seems  to  find  a  resting-place  in  some  quiet 
benefice,  where  he  could  write  and  read  and  muse  all 
day  long  without  being  compelled  to  torture  his  brains 
into  song  to  flatter  the  vanity  of  his  royal  patrons  or  to 
amuse  the  giddy  habitues  of  the  Court.  Where  it  was 
situated,  alas  !  we  know  not.  In  fact,  Dunbar's  closing  years 
are  entirely  wrapped  in  obscurity.  In  all  probability  he 
retired  to  his  benefice,  glad  to  escape  from  the  quarrels  of 
a  Court  that  was  every  day  becoming  more  divided  and 
anarchic.  Possibly  he  never  again  visited  it.  The  only 
subsequent  reference  to  Dunbar  occurs  in  one  of  Sir  David 
Lindsay's  poems,  written  about  the  year  1530,  viz.  The 
Testament  and  Co?nplaynt  of  the  Kings  Papyngo2 — 

'  For  why  the  bell  of  rhetorick  bene  rung, 
By  Chaucer,  Gower,  and  Lydgate  aureat, 


1  Epistolae  Kegum  Scotorum,  vol.  i.  p.  199.     2  In  the  Prologue,  Stanza  11. 


WILLIAM  DUNBAR  123 

Who  dare  presume  their  poems  to  impugn, 

Whose  sweet  sentence  through  Albions  been  sung? 

Or  who  can  now  the  workis  countrafeit 

Of  Kennedy  with  terme's  aureate, 

Or  of  Dunbar,  who  language  had  at  large 

As  may  be  seen  intil  his  Golden  Targe.' 

From  these  lines  we  gather  that  Dunbar  had  been  dead 
for  some  time ;  and,  as  Laing  adds,  '  from  the  manner  in 
which  Lyndsay  laments  Bishop  Douglas,  who  died  in  1522, 
it  may  be  inferred  that  our  author's  decease  was  previous 
to  that  of  the  prelate.  We  cannot  greatly  err  in  supposing 
that  he  died  about  the  year  1520,  when  he  was  about  sixty 
years  of  age.' 

But  if  we  know  not  where  he  died,  nor  when,  nor  under 
what  circumstances  his  last  years  were  spent,  if  we  know 
not  where  he  lies,  and  if  we  cannot  repair  to  his  tomb  in 
the  fond  pilgrimage  of  sincere  admiration,  in  his  poems  he 
has  raised  a  monument  to  himself,  as  Horace  writes  of 
his  own  book,  perennins  aere — more  lasting  than  brass, — a 
monument  which,  as  the  years  and  the  centuries  roll  by, 
will  be  ever  increasingly  valued  by  all  who  revere  the  pro- 
ductions of  a  genius  as  profound  as  it  was  soaring. 


CHAPTER    XI 

DUNBAR    AS    AN    ALLEGORIST    AND    SATIRIST 

We  have  now  completed  our  survey  of  the  life  of  our 
great  Scots  poet.  Before  closing  this  little  volume,  how- 
ever, I  should  like  to  devote  a  few  pages  to  a  critical 
analysis  of  his  genius  and  of  his  works.  Along  with 
Robert  Burns,  Dunbar  must  undoubtedly  be  regarded  as 
the  greatest  imaginative  poet  Scotland  has  produced.  Sir 
Walter  Scott  remarks:  'This  darling  of  the  Scottish 
Muses  has  been  justly  raised  to  a  level  with  Chaucer  by 
every  judge  of  poetry  to  whom  his  obsolete  language  has 
not  rendered  him  unintelligible ' ; l  while  George  Ellis, 
an  English  critic,  and  therefore  not  likely  to  be  biassed 
by  patriotic  prejudices,  goes  further,  and  says,  '  William 
Dunbar,  the  greatest  poet  that  Scotland  has  produced,'2 
and  did  space  permit  quite  as  decisive  testimonies  could 
be  cited  from  Malcolm  and  David  Laing,  Warton,  Dr. 
Irving,  Mr.  Gilchrist,  Thomas  Campbell,  and  Mr.  Fraser- 
Tytler.  That  of  Dr.  Drake,  however,  is  so  eulogistic  that 
I  cannot  refrain  from  quoting  it.  Speaking  of  Chaucer, 
he  declares  'it  is  evident  that  a  union  of  talents  of  this 
wide  range  must  necessarily  be  of  rare  occurrence  :  nor 

1  Sir  Walter  Scott's  Memoirs  of  George   Bannatyne  ;   also  History  of 
Scotland. 
-  Ellis's  Specimens  of  the  Early  English  Poems,  vol.  i.  p.  377. 
124 


WILLIAM  DUNBAR  125 

can  we  wonder  that  a  century  should  elapse  before  a  poet 
in  any  high  degree  approaching  the  genius  of  Chaucer 
made  his  appearance  in  this  island.  Not  indeed  until 
Dunbar  arose  in  the  sister  kingdom  had  we  another 
instance  of  the  combination  of  first-rate  abilities  for 
humour  and  comic  painting,  with  an  equally  powerful 
command  over  the  higher  regions  of  fiction  and  imagina- 
tion.'1 

These  testimonies,  then,  are  calculated  to  outweigh  that 
silly  criticism  of  James  Russell  Lowell 2 — whose  mania  for 
saying   smart   things   perpetually  led   him   into   errors    in 
fact — when,  after  praising  a  few  lines  on  which  he  had 
stumbled  in  The  Merle  and  the  Nightingale,  he  goes  on 
to  say  :  '  But  except  this  lucky  poem,  I  find  little  else  in 
the  serious  verses  of  Dunbar  that  does  not  seem  to  me 
tedious  and  pedantic.     /  dare  say  a  feiv  more  lines  might 
be  found  scattered  here  and  there,   but   I   hold  it  sheer 
waste  of  time  to  hunt  after  those  thin  needles  of  wit  buried 
in  unwieldy  haystacks  of  verse.     If  that  be  genius,  the  less 
we  have  of  it  the  better.'     In  pointing  out  to  Mr.  Lowell, 
a  year  or  two  before  his  death,  the  glaring  contradiction 
contained  in  these  two  sentences,  that  great  man,  who  was 
nothing  if  not   the  most  honourable  and  straightforward 
of  critics,  confessed  to  me  that  he  had  only  read  half  a 
dozen  pieces  at  most  of  Dunbar's  work.      Probably  Sir 
Walter  Scott's  remark  would  be  applicable  here,  that  he 
is  appreciated  only  by  those  'to  whom  his  obsolete  lan- 
guage has  not  rendered  him  unintelligible.' 

1  Drake's  Mornings  in  Spring,  vol.  ii.  p.  5. 

-  Lowell's  Essays  on  the  English  Pods,  Scott  Library  Edition,  p.  14. 


i26  FAMOUS  SCOTS 

If  Dunbar — to  compare  him  with  a  posterior  as  well  as 
an  anterior  rival — did  not  possess  Spenser's  limpid  sweet- 
ness, his  genius  was  of  a  stronger,  bolder  cast  than  that  of 
the  author  of  the  Faerie  Queen.  If  the  circle  of  his  flight 
did  not  extend  so  far,  he  soared  into  realms  of  pure  ima- 
gination quite  as  high  as  Spenser  ever  attempted.  Were 
Dunbar's  vocabulary  as  familiar  to  English  readers  as  that 
of  his  rival,  the  fact  would  to  most  be  self-evident. 

To  those  who  can  enjoy  Dunbar  without  requiring  the 
constant  aid  of  a  glossary,  he  is  himself  his  own  exceeding 
great  reward.  The  many-sidedness  of  his  genius  has  a  ring 
almost  Shakespearian  about  it.  To  no  other  poet  has  the 
faculty  been  given  of  attaining  excellence  so  supreme 
in  so  many  diverse  kinds  of  metrical  composition.  The 
Golden  Targe  is  an  allegory  as  purely  imaginative  as 
the  Faerie  Queen  itself ;  The  Thistle  and  the  Rose  a 
marriage  song  worthy  to  take  rank  beside  Spenser's 
Epithalamium.  In  the  mock-heroic  or  Hudibrastic  vein, 
have  we  not  the  Joust  between  the  Tailor  and  the 
Soutar,  The  Fenyeit  Friar  of  Tungland,  and  many  others 
that  exhibit  a  sense  of  the  ludicrous  and  incongruous, 
every  whit  as  keen  as  Butler's?  Then  in  pure  satire 
his  Tidings  frae  the  Session,  The  Devil's  Inquest,  The 
Visitation  of  St.  Francis,  and  many  others,  to  say  nothing 
of  his  share  in  the  terrible  Flyting,  are  admirable  speci- 
mens of  the  lash  of  ridicule  applied  to  contemporary  vices 
and  follies.  But,  over  and  above  all  these,  the  man 
whose  genius  could  rise  to  such  a  soaring  flight  of  imagina- 
tive sublimity  as  in  the  Dance  of  the  Seven  Deadly  Sins, 
and  yet  pour  forlh  on  the  other  hand  an  elegiac  strain  of 


WILLIAM  DUNBAR  127 

such  unfeigned  pathos  as  the  Lament  for  the  Makars, 
must  assuredly  be  held  to  rank  with  the  very  greatest 
masters  of  his  craft  in  English  literature. 

But  to  look  a  little  more  narrowly  into  the  components 
of  Dunbar's  genius,  let  us  consider  first  the  work  accom- 
plished by  him  in  Allegory  and  Satire.  Warton  incisively 
remarks :  '  The  imagination  of  Dunbar  is  not  less  suited 
to  satirical  than  sublime  allegory,  and  he  is  the  first  poet 
who  has  appeared  in  this  way  of  writing  since  Piers  Plow- 
man.'' l  And  Professor  Henry  Morley,  speaking  of  The 
Thistle  and  the  Rose,  says :  '  The  bold  touch  of  direct 
counsel  to  the  King  (about  honouring  the  Rose  above  all 
other  flowers)  brings  an  old  form  of  allegory  here  into 
close  contact  with  the  life  of  its  own  day.  In  the  Golden 
Targe  there  is  the  playful  grace  of  the  poet  who  is  the 
first  since  Chaucer  in  whom  we  recognise  again  a  master 
in  his  art.  Dunbar  was  a  man  of  genius,  a  born  poet, 
with  wide  range  of  powers,  cultivated  mind,  and  perfect 
training  in  the  mechanism  of  verse.' 

Dunbar,  like  Chaucer,  understood  the  subtle  secret  of 
rendering  allegory  intensely  attractive,  which  '  the  moral 
Gower'  and  'Lydgate  aureate'  did  not.  If  we  judge 
Dunbar's  use  of  allegory  by  the  definition  of  it  given  by 
the  rhetoricians,  our  poet  will  not  be  found  to  exactly 
conform  to  the  strict  letter  of  the  law.  Principal  Camp- 
bell asserts  allegory  to  be  the  picture  of  something  through 
the  agency  of  something  else;2  while  Dr.  Blair  regards  it 
as  continued  metaphor,  'as  the  representation  of  some  one 

1  Walton's  History  of  English  Poetry,  sue.  xxx.  p.  505. 

2  Campbell's  Philosophy  of  Rhetoric. 


i28  FAMOUS  SCOTS 

thing  by  another  that  resembles  it,  and  is  made  to  stand 
for  it.'1     In  allegorical  poetry  Dunbar  takes  a  place  with 
his    Thistle   and  the   Rose,    The    Golden    Targe,   and    The 
Merle  and  the  Nightingale,  which  is  by  the  side   of  the 
very  highest  masters  in  European  literature.     Granted  that 
the  machinery  of  his  allegories  is  still  the   conventional 
and   hackneyed   form   of    walking    out   early   on   a   May 
morning  and  falling   asleep   in  some   cave   convenient — 
such  caves  seem  to  have  been  vastly  more  plentiful  then 
than  now, — where  he   experiences   the   visions   recorded, 
being   generally   awakened    by   an    irruption    of  the    real 
world  into  the  ideal,  such  as  a  salute  fired  by  the  cannon 
of  a  ship  in  the  bay.     The  descriptive  powers  of  our  poet 
are  of  the  very  highest  order.     Nature  as  it  is,  not  as  he 
conceives  it  should  be,  is  painted   on    his   canvas.     His 
vocabulary  is  rich  and  full,  though  he  manifests  an  exces- 
sive  preference  for   Latinised   forms,  such   as   'preclare,' 
'  pulcritude,'  'matutine,'  'armipotent,'  'mellifluate,'  which, 
however,  the  genius  of  the  language  soon  rejected.     His 
figures  of  speech  are  almost  invariably  startlingly  original, 
being  used  moreover  with  great  propriety,  and  that  exqui- 
site sympathy  between  the  thought  that  imparts  life  and 
the  style  that  receives  it.     He  is  greater  in  pure  descrip- 
tion than  any  other  poet  in  our  language  save  Thomson. 
His  descriptive  pictures  are  gems  in  miniature.     He  never 
lavishes  a  superfluous  word  on  any  scene.      Yet  one  is 
conscious  how  rich  exceedingly  are  his  poetic  cameos  in 
artistic  finish  and  metrical  deftness.     Take  for  example 
the  following  allegorical  picture  of  a  spring  morning,  which 

]   Blair's  Lectures  on  Rhetoric  and  Belles  Lettres. 


WILLIAM  DUNBAR  129 

is  intended  to  indicate  also  the  fresh  active  longings  of 
the  country  at  the  commencement  of  a  new  century,  and 
the  feelings  with  which  that  brilliant  intellectual  group 
which  surrounded  the  throne  of  the  warrior  king  regarded 
the  prospects  of  learning  and  art : — 

'  When  March  with  her  varying  winds  was  past, 
And  April  had  with  her  silver  showers 
Tane  leave  of  Nature  with  an  orient  blast. 
And  lushy  May  that  Mother  is  of  flowers 
Had  made  the  birdis  to  begin  their  hours, 
Among  the  tender  odours  red  and  white, 
Whose  harmony  to  hear  it  was  delight : 

In  bed  at  morning,  sleeping  as  I  lay, 

Methought  Aurora  with  her  crystal  een 

In  at  the  window  lookit  by  the  day, 

And  hailed  me  with  visage  pale  and  green  ; 

And  on  whose  hand  a  lark  sang  loud,  I  wene, 

"Awake,  lovers,  out  of  your  slumbering, 

See  how  the  lusty  morning  doth  upspring." 

Methought  fresh  May  before  my  bed  upstood, 
In  weeds  depaint  of  many  a  diverse  hue, 
Sober,  benign,  and  full  of  mansuetude, 
In  bright  attire  of  flowers  forgit  new, 
Heavenly  of  colour,  white,  red,  brown,  and  blue, 
Bathed  all  in  dew,  and  gilt  with  Phoebus'  beams, 
While  she  the  house  illumined  by  her  gleams.' 

May  then  rebukes  the  poet  for  not  rising  early  accord- 
ing to  his  invariable  custom  in  the  past  to  celebrate  the 
approach  of  the  spring,  especially  as  the  lark  has  now 
announced  the  dawn  of  day,  and  his  heart  in  former  years 
had  always — 

'  Glad  and  blissful  been 
Sangis  to  make  under  the  leavis  green.' 

I 


T3o  FAMOUS  SCOTS 

May  commands  him  to  rise  and  to  perform  his  annual 
homage  to  the  flowers,  the  birds,  and  the  sun.  They  both 
enter  a  delicious  garden,  filled  with  the  richest  colours 
and  odours.  The  sun  suddenly  appears  in  his  glory, 
and  is  thus  described  in  the  luminous  language  of 
Dunbar — 

'  The  purple  sun  with  tender  beamis  red, 
In  orient  bright  as  angel  did  appear, 
Through  golden  skyis  putting  up  his  head, 
Whose  glorious  tresses  shone  so  wondrous  clear, 
That  all  the  world  took  comfort  far  and  near.' 

This  introduction  to  The  Thistle  and  the  Rose  will  enable 
my  readers  to  understand  the  character  of  the  poem. 
Thereafter  Nature,  and  the  beasts,  the  birds,  and  the  trees, 
all  assemble  to  do  homage  to  the  Rose,  the  personification 
of  the  various  inanimate  forces  of  Nature  being  very 
skilfully  managed.  The  whole  purpose  of  the  piece  is  to 
offer  a  delicate  yet  lofty  compliment  to  Margaret  Tudor, 
and  in  his  design  the  poet  succeeds  admirably.  Allegory 
as  a  subtle  warp  is  deftly  interwoven  with  the  web  of 
fact,  and  the  whole  texture  of  the  work  is  of  the  most 
exquisitely  felicitous  character. 

In  The  Golden  Targe,  on  the  other  hand,  the  design 
of  the  poet  is  to  evince  the  gradual  and  imperceptible 
influence  of  love  when  indulged  beyond  the  limits  of  reason. 
The  poet  walks  out  once  more  at  the  dawn  of  a  bright 
May  day,  and,  lulled  by  the  music  of  the  birds  and  the 
murmuring  of  waters,  falls  asleep  on  the  flower-bed,  which 
he  calls  'Flora's  mantle.'  In  a  vision  he  sees  a  ship 
approach  whose  sails  were  white  as  '  the  blossom  upon  the 


WILLIAM  DUNBAR  131 

spray,'  whose  masts  are  of  gold,  '  bright  as  the  star  of  day.' 
She  arrives  at  the  shore,  and  out  of  her  are  landed  upon 
the  blooming  meadows  a  hundred  ladies  clad  in  loose 
green  attire  richly  ornamented.  In  this  brilliant  assemblage 
the  author  sees  Dame  Nature,  '  Venus  Queen,'  Aurora, 
May,  Lady  Flora,  Juno,  Latona,  Proserpine,  Diana,  and 
others  —  all  crowned  with  diadems,  glittering  like  the 
morning  star.  The  poet  leaves  his  ambush  under  the  trees, 
and  presses  forward  to  gain  a  better  view,  when  he  is 
espied  by  Venus,  who  bids  her  'archers  keen'  arrest  the 
intruder,  whereupon  all  the  fair  ladies,  dropping  their  gay 
attire,  arm  themselves  with  bows,  and  form  themselves  in 
battle-array.  The  position  of  the  spy  would  have  become 
critical  had  he  not  at  the  last  moment  been  championed 
by  Reason  armed  with  the  Golden  Targe.  All  the  efforts 
of  Beauty  and  her  fair  fellow- warriors  to  overcome  the 
poet  are  unavailing  so  long  as  he  is  defended  by  Reason, 
but  at  length  a  magical  powder  is  thrown  into  the  eyes  of 
Reason,  who  is  suddenly  deprived  of  all  his  powers  and 
reels  like  a  drunken  man.  Immediately  the  poet  receives 
a  deadly  wound  and  is  taken  prisoner  by  Beauty.  The 
allegory  is  admirably  constructed,  the  Abstract  Qualities 
and  Moral  Virtues  being  endowed  with  all  the  life-like 
truth  of  reality.  There  is  a  directness,  a  poetic  swiftness 
almost  Homeric  in  the  action  of  this  allegorical  epic, 
united  to  a  warm  imaginative  glow,  a  vigour  of  thought, 
and  a  metrical  felicity  that  is  even  more  marked  in  the 
latter  piece  than  in  the  former. 

The  opening  of  The   Golden   Targe  has   been   greatly 
admired  for  the  magical  truth  of  its  description.     Such  a 


i32  FAMOUS  SCOTS 

stanza  as  the  following  whets  one's  appetite  to  have  more 
of  the  royal  fare  provided  in  the  poem — 

'  The  crystal  air,  the  sapphire  firmament, 
The  ruby  skyis  of  the  orient, 
Kissed  beryl  beams  on  emerald  boughs  so  green, 
The  rosy  garth  depaint  and  redolent, 
With  purple  azure,  gold  and  gules  gent, 
Arrayit  was  by  Dame  Flora,  the  queen, 
So  nobily  that  joy  was  to  be  seen  : 
The  rock  again  the  river  resplendent 
As  low  illuminit  all  the  leavis  sheen.' 

The  other  poems  which  also  come  under  the  head  of 
'  allegories,'  though  less  distinctively  so,  are  Beauty  and  the 
Prisoner,  The  Merle  and  the  Nightingale,  and  one  or  two 
smaller  pieces  of  less  literary  value.  The  Merle  and  the 
Nightingale — a  dialogue  between  the  two  birds  on  earthly 
as  against  heavenly  love — was  written  late  in  life,  after 
the  death  of  the  King.  Interesting  indeed  is  the  task  to 
compare  the  special  characteristics  of  the  allegorical  poems 
produced  by  Dunbar  previous  to  the  fatal  day  of  Flodden 
and  those  dated  subsequent  to  it.  The  difference  is 
marked.  In  The  Merle  and  the  Nightingale  all  the  joyous 
pleasure  in  life,  the  keen  delight  in  its  enjoyments,  the 
insatiable  appetite  for  novelty  and  intellectual  improvement, 
seem  to  have  passed  away  for  ever.  In  their  stead  there 
is  a  world-weary  sadness,  an  unutterable  longing  for  rest 
and  perfect  peace  wherein  to  hear  the  voice  of  God 
speaking  to  him.  The  Thistle  and  the  Rose  and  The 
Golden  Targe  were  written  by  a  man  in  the  full  flush  of 
life's  meridian,  eager  to  drink  the  cup  of  pleasure  to  the 
very  dregs ;  The  Merle  a?id  the  Nightingale  is  the  work  of 


WILLIAM  DUNBAR  133 

the  same  spirit  when  his  very  pleasures  have  palled  on 

him,  when  he  sees  that  the  world  after  all  is  but  a  sorry 

place,  and  that  if  there  remained  not  for  us  a  rest  when  the 

day  of  toil  was  done,  the  human  lot  were  wretched  indeed. 

'  The  nightingale  said,  "  Fool,  remember  thee, 
That  both  in  youth  and  age,  and  every  hour, 
The  love  of  God  most  deir  to  man  should  be, 
That  him  of  naught  wrought  like  His  own  figure, 
And  died  Himself  from  death  him  to  succour ; 
O  whether  was  produced  their  true  love  or  none  : 
God  is  most  true  and  stedfast  paramour, 
All  love  is  lost  but  upon  Him  allone."  ' 

Dunbar  as  a  satirist  of  contemporary  men  and  manners 
was  one  of  the  most  trenchant  writers  that  ever  lifted  pen 
in  this  department  of  letters.  If  the  current  definition  of 
Satire  be  accepted  by  us,  to  wit,  a  discourse  or  poem  in 
which  wickedness  or  folly  is  exposed  by  severity  and  held 
up  to  ridicule  and  contempt,1  then  some  of  Dunbar's  finest 
work  falls  within  this  category.  He  has  many  satiric  styles 
aptly  proportioned  to  the  degree  of  folly  or  culpability  with 
which  he  was  dealing,— a  light,  airy  style  of  persiflage  and 
banter,  wherein  the  sting  is  scarcely  perceptible  in  the 
genial  laughter  and  fun  of  merry-making.  He  had  care- 
fully studied  the  maxims  and  examples  of  Horace  in 
respect  to  this  manner,  and  his  imitations  of  the  great 
Roman  satirist's  work  are  both  felicitous  and  pointed.  In 
this  category  I  would  place  The  Ballad  of  Kind  Kittok, 
James  Doig,  Keeper  of  the  Queen's  Wardrobe,  Of  a  Blacka- 
moor, The  Joust  between  the  Tailor  and  the  Soutar,  and  The 
Testament  of  Mr.  Andrew  Kennedy.  The  last  named  is  a 
clever  specimen  of  macaronic  verse,  and  is  perhaps  as  early 
1  Satires  and  Satirists,  by  James  Hannay. 


i34  FAMOUS  SCOTS 

an  instance  of  its  use  as  we  have  in   English  literature. 

The  following  is  a  stanza  of  it — 

'  I  wish  no  priests  for  me  to  sing, 
Dies  ilia,  dies  irae, 
Nor  yet  no  bells  for  me  to  ring, 
Sicut  semper  solet  fiere  ; 
But  a  bag-pipe  to  play  a  spring, 
Et  unum  ale -wisp  ante  me  ; 
Instead  of  banners  let  them  bring 
Quatuor  lagenas  ceruisie.' 

The  second  class  of  Dunbar's  satirical  poems  are  those  in 
which  he  describes,  with  a  keenness  of  analysis  rarely 
equalled,  and  a  perception  into  human  motives  almost 
startling  in  its  truth  and  its  unerringness,  certain  of  the 
more  venial  kinds  of  culpable  folly.  Though  he  hits  hard  at 
times,  there  is  still  more  of  fun  and  frolic  in  his  satirical 
representations  than  sarcasm  or  malice.  Among  these 
pieces  are  the  poems  In  Praise  of  Women,  To  the  Merchants 
of  Edinburgh,  The  Dance  in  the  Queen's  Chamber,  Against 
Treason,  and  How  shall  I  Governe  me  ?  From  the  last- 
named  satire  I  quote  the  two  concluding  stanzas — 

'  I  would  my  guiding  were  devised  ; 
If  I  spend  little  I  am  despised, 
If  I  be  noble,  gentle,  and  free, 
A  prodigal  man  I  then  am  prized. 
Lord  God,  how  shall  I  govern  me  ? 

Now  judge  they  me  both  good  and  ill, 
And  sooth  I  may  no  man's  tongue  still, 
To  do  the  best  my  mind  shall  be  : 
Let  every  man  say  what  he  will, 
The  gracious  God  must  govern  me.' 

But  when  we  reach  the  third  class  of  Dunbar's  satires — 
the  class  represented  by  The  Fenyeit  Friar  of  Tung/and, 


WILLIAM  DUNBAR  135 

The  Two  Married  Women  and  the  Widow,  The  Devil's 
Inquest,  The  Dance  of  the  Seven  Deadly  Sins,  The 
Birth  of  Antichrist,  and  several  other  pieces  of  a  like 
character — we  enter  a  different  atmosphere  altogether. 
From  the  genial  jesting  and  ironical  incongruities  in  the 
style  of  Horace  and  of  Persius,  we  are  introduced  at  once 
into  the  bitter  vitriolic  scourgings  of  Juvenal.  The  lash 
of  the  satirist  is  all  the  more  merciless  when  it  is  artistically 
laid  on.  Every  word  tells.  The  instinct  and  the  unerring 
skill  of  the  great  literary  artist  are  everywhere  visible.  Not 
a  false  stroke  is  to  be  traced  in  any  of  his  greater  satires. 
They  are  terrible  in  the  very  concentrated  essence  of  their 
bitterness.  As  Dr.  J.  M.  Ross  remarks,1  'The real  strength 
of  Dunbar  lies  in  his  satirical  humour.  Here  he  is 
thoroughly  independent,  and  portrays  the  aspects  of  the 
society  about  him  with  incomparable  vigour  and  pungency, 
He  has  no  shame,  no  scruples,  no  reticence,  he  shrinks 
from  no  foulness  of  language  or  grossness  of  incident. 
There  is  really  no  limit  to  the  variety  of  his  humour.' 
It  is  by  turns  mirthful,  mocking,  sarcastic,  grotesque, 
profane,  stern,  and  intense ;  it  even  shows  its  Protean 
character  by  the  multiplicity  of  its  metrical  forms.  In 
Dunbar's  satires  one  notes  the  natural  directness  of  Hall, 
the  subtle  depth  of  Donne,  the  delicate  humour  of  Breton, 
the  sturdy  vigour  of  Dryden,  the  scalding,  vitriolic  bitter- 
ness of  Swift,  the  pungency  of  Churchill,  the  rural 
'  smack '  of  Gay,  united  to  an  approach  at  least  to 
the  artistic  perfection  of  Pope.  There  is  one  satire  of 
Dunbar's  which,  taken  all  in  all,  is  one  of  the  most  extra- 

'  Scottish  History  and  Literature,  by  J.  M.  Ross,  LL.D.,  p.  198. 


136  FAMOUS  SCOTS 

ordinary  productions  that  has  ever  emanated  from  the 
human  intellect.  The  student  of  literature  who  peruses 
with  care  for  perhaps  the  hundredth  time  The  Dance  of 
the  Seven  Deadly  Sins,  equally  with  the  cursory  reader 
who  mayhap  tumbles  across  it  without  the  slightest  know- 
ledge of  the  author's  other  works,  are  both  equally  startled 
by  the  amazing  realistic  power,  the  profound  depth  of  a 
moral  earnestness  at  times  falling  but  little  short  of  Dantean 
impressiveness,  and  the  weird,  lurid  grandeur  of  its  sub- 
limity. The  whole  atmosphere  of  the  piece  seems  electric 
with  a  horror  that  deepens  as  the  fiery  lines  rush  to  their 
conclusion.  Calderon,  in  some  of  the  most  powerful  scenes 
in  his  Autos  Sacramenta/es,  has  probed  depths  of  imagina- 
tive power  equally  grand  and  terrible.  But  the  great 
Spaniard  writes  from  the  point  of  view  of  a  reverential, 
ethical  anatomist,  who  sorrows  even  where  he  most 
trenchantly  satirises :  Dunbar  has  a  mocking,  malicious 
smile  on  his  lips  from  start  to  finish,  as  though  he  had 
realised  from  the  evidence  of  his  own  heart  the  deep,  sad- 
dening truth  that  mankind  at  heart  were  irretrievably 
corrupt.  With  him  satire  broadens  into  the  malignity  of 
sarcasm,  the  light  persiflage  dies  out  of  his  verse,  and  a 
fierce,  acrimonious,  caustic  venom  is  spirted  into  the  lines 
— a  venom  whose  acid  burns  where  it  lights.  As  Ross 
remarks,1  'It  is  an  allegoric  satire, grim  and  grand,  grotesque 
and  horrible.'  The  scene  is  laid  in  no  imaginary  fairyland 
of  sensuous  beauty,  where  mythological  figures  are  grouped 
together  in  '  most  admired  disorder,'  and  take  part  in  vain 
and   ridiculous   exploits.     Hell  is  rudely  opened  to  our 

1  Scottish  History  and  Literature,  p.  200. 


WILLIAM  DUNBAR  137 

view,  and  the  vices  that  make  havoc  of  our  nature  are 
shown  disporting  themselves  in  a  ghastly  revel  under  the 
leadership  of  '  Mahoun.'  It  is  the  night  before  Lent,  when 
the  carnival  riot  is  at  its  maddest.  Everything  is  morally 
real,  though  presented  in  such  a  farcical  guise.  The  very 
idea  of  a  '  Dance  in  Hell '  is  startling,  but  to  Dunbar,  as  in 
the  case  of  Burns  with  Tarn  d  Shanter,  the  wild  humour 
of  the  conception  has  a  weird  fascination,  as  Ross  aptly 
puts  it,  and  'never  until  just  at  the  close  does  the  author 
seek  by  light-heeled  levity  to  mitigate  the  horror  of  the 
infernal  vision.'  Even  the  terrible  realism  of  Burns  pales 
before  this  awful  satire.  As  evincing  the  marvellous  minute- 
ness of  detail  by  which  the  poem  is  characterised,  and  how 
the  horror  is  built  up  bit  by  bit,  with  an  accretion  of 
elements,  each  successive  one  more  terrific  than  the  pre- 
ceding, we  learn  that  the  dance  which  Mahoun  orders  to 
be  performed  is  to  be  executed  by  those  fiends  only  who 
in  the  other  world  had  never  made  confession  to  the  priest, 
and  as  a  consequence  had  never  received  absolution.  The 
'  Seven  Deadly  Sins '  are  Pride,  Anger,  Envy,  Avarice, 
Sloth,  Lust,  and  Gluttony.  Then  the  dance  commences. 
No  music,  however,  is  heard  in  the  hideous  halls  of  Hell, 
but  at  last  a  Highland  coronach  is  shouted  by  a  '  Mac- 
fadyane,'  and  kindles  a  reckless  fury  in  the  breasts  of  the 
dancers — this  last  touch  being  a  cut  at  the  Celtic  hordes 
which  ever  and  anon  poured  over  the  fertile  plains  of  the 
Lowlands.  The  portraits  of  'Anger,'  'Envy,'  and  'Lust,' 
in  particular,  are  painted  with  great  vigour  and  realistic 
force.  The  concluding  stanza,  as  Warton  states,  is  ex- 
clusively a  satire  on  the  Highlanders.     After  the  Dance  of 


138  FAMOUS  SCOTS 

the  Seven  Sins  is  over,  Mahoun  or  Mahomet,  whose  name 
is  always  accepted  in  early  English  literature,  and  in  par- 
ticular in  ballad  minstrelsy,  as  a  synonym  for  the  devil, 
expresses  a  desire  to  see  a  Highland  pageant.  One  of 
the  fiends  is  sent  again  to  summon  Macfadyane.  As  soon 
as  the  latter  commenced  his  coronach,  immediately  he 
gathered  round  him  a  prodigious  crowd  of  Celts,  who  took 
up  great  room  in  hell.  These  '  worthies '  began  to  chatter 
in  their  own  language,  and  the  devil  is  so  stunned  with  the 
horrid  din  that  he  casts  them  down  to  his  deepest  abyss 
and  smothers  them  with  smoke.  The  closing  pictures  of 
the  '  Highland  pageant '  are  thus  represented  in  this 
wonderful  satire — 

'  Then  the  foul  monster,  Gluttony, 
Of  vvame  insatiable  and  greedy, 

To  dance  he  did  him  dress  : 
Him  followed  many  a  foul  drunkart, 
With  can  and  collop,  cup  and  quart, 

In  surfeit  and  excess. 
Full  many  a  waistless  wally-drag,1 
With  wames  unwieldable  furth  did  wag 

In  grease  that  did  increase. 
"  Drunk,"  aye  they  cried,  with  many  a  gape, 
The  fiends  gave  them  hot  lead  to  laip,'2 
Their  leveray3  was  not  less. 
No  minstrels  played  to  them  :  nor  doubt 
That  gleemen  there  were  shutten  out, 
By  day  and  eik  by  night : 
Except  a  minstrel  that  slew  a  man, 
So  to  his  heritage  he  wan, 
Entering  by  bill  of  right. 

Then  cried  Mahoun  for  a  Highland  padyane, 4 
Strait  ran  a  fiend  to  fetch  Makfadyane 
Far  northwest  in  a  nook, 


1  A  silly,  useless  person.  -  Lap.  3  Reward.  4  Pageant. 


WILLIAM  DUNBAR  139 

When  he  the  coronach  did  shout 
Then  Gaels  so  gathered  him  about 

In  hell  great  room  they  took. 
These  termagants,  with  tag  and  tatter, 
Full  loud  in  Ersche 1  began  to  clatter, 
And  roup  like  raven  and  rook. 
The  Devil  so  deived2  was  with  their  yell, 
That  in  the  deepest  pot  of  hell, 

He  smothered  them  with  smoke.' 

Only  one  more  extract  shall  we  cite,  and  that  is  from  the 
wonderful  satire  The  DeviPs  Inquest.  In  a  dream  the 
poet  sees  the  '  foul  fiend '  passing  to  and  fro,  and  every- 
where finding  his  own.  All  classes  of  men  whom  he 
accosts  swear  by  the  most  holy  oaths  that  they  speak 
the  truth,  yet  they  all  lie  and  cheat.  The  different  char- 
acters, says  Ross,  are  set  before  us  with  that  picturesque 
terseness  of  touch  in  which  Dunbar  excelled  all  his  pre- 
decessors except  Chaucer.  Here  are  one  or  two  stanzas 
as  an  example — 

'  A  goldsmith  said,  the  gold  is  so  fine 
That  all  the  workmanship  I  tine. 

The  fiend  receive  me  if  I  lie. 
Think  on,  quoth  the  Devil,  that  thou  art  mine, 

Renounce  thy  God  and  come  to  me. 

A  tailor  said,  in  all  the  town 

Be  there  a  better  well  made  gown, 

I  give  me  to  the  fiend  all  free. 
Gramery,  tailor,  said  Mahoun, 

Renounce  thy  God  and  come  to  me. 

A  baker  said,  I  forsake  God 
And  all  His  works,  even  and  odd, 
If  fairer  bread  there  needs  to  be. 

1  Gaelic.  2  Deafened. 


140  FAMOUS  SCOTS 

The  Devil  laughed,  and  on  him  could  nod, 
Renounce  thy  God  and  come  to  me. 

By  God's  blood,  quoth  the  tavernier, 
There  is  such  wine  in  my  celleir, 

Has  never  come  in  this  countrie. 
Tut,  quoth  the  Devil,  thou  sells  owre  dear, 

Renounce  thy  God  and  come  to  me. ' 


CHAPTER    X 

DUNBAR    AS    A    LOVE-POET   AND    ELEGIST 

Dunbar's  powers  as  a  writer  of  amatory  verse  were  of  a 

high  order.     Whether  or  not  we  believe  the  charge,  that 

the  only  experience  he  ever  enjoyed  of  love  was  of  an  illicit 

character,  certain  it  is  that  the  Court  Laureate  was  not 

deficient  in  the  department  of  his  art  which  to  many  of  the 

courtiers,  and  certainly  to  the  King,  presented  itself  as  the 

chief  end  of  poesy.     With  such  sentiments  current  in  the 

Court,  the  fact   is   not  without  its  own  significance  that 

erotic    poetry   should    form   a   part    so    infinitesimal    of 

Dunbar's  work.     Albeit  of  a  nature  in   earlier  years  so 

instinct  with  gaiety  and  fun,  loving  life  for  the  very  joy  of 

living,  the  fact  would  have  been  more  than  remarkable  if 

he  had  passed  from  the  cradle  to  the  grave  heart-whole. 

But,  as  has  been  already  indicated,  his  love  for  the  beautiful 

Mrs.  Musgrave,  or  Lady  Musgrave,  as  she  would  be  termed 

to-day,    speedily   became   of    a   very    Platonic   character. 

From  the  internal  evidence  of  the  three  or  four  pieces 

which  constitute  the  amatory  verse  of  William  Dunbar,  I 

am  inclined  to  think,  with  Schipper  and  Sheriff  Mackay,1 

that  the  connection  between  them  was  in  every  respect 

innocent.     There  are  always  persons  in  this  world  whose 

1  Sheriff  Mackay's  Introduction. 

141 


142  FAMOUS  SCOTS 

imaginations  seem  to  be  in  a  chronic  state  of  '  cesspoolism,' 
if  the  word  will  be  pardoned.  On  the  conduct  of  others 
they  always  put  the  very  worst  construction,  and  as  though 
their  own  motives  were  perpetually  savouring  of  the  moral 
sewer-pipe,  they  accredit  other  people  with  actions  of  which 
they  had  no  more  thought  than  a  babe  unborn.  Dunbar's 
freedom  of  speech,  due  to  the  inherent  coarseness  of  his 
age,  the  somewhat  liberal  licence  he  allows  himself  in  the 
description  of  the  notorious  immoralities  of  his  age,  united 
to  the  fact  that,  in  place  of  lashing  the  vice  with  a  whip  of 
scorpions,  he  pokes  genial  fun  at  the  peccadilloes,  rallies 
the  King  gaily  over  his  pre-nuptial  amours,  as  in  The  Tod 
and  the  Lamb,  and  is  not  ashamed  to  portray  in  broad 
colours  the  rustic  love-making  that  finds  representation  in 
A  Brash  of  Wooing,  have  been  urged  against  him  as  proof 
positive  of  his  immoral  life.  It  has  gained  him  a  worse 
name  than  he  deserves.  He  describes  in  those  early  poems 
what  was  the  custom  of  the  Court  in  the  days  of  James's 
bachelorhood,  but  we  have  not  a  tittle  of  evidence  to  prove 
that  the  poet  was  personally  guilty  of  the  slightest  indis- 
cretion that  might  cast  disgrace  on  his  cloth.  The  coarse- 
ness of  the  age  and  the  licence  of  its  manners  cannot  be 
alleged  as  faults  against  Dunbar ;  while,  had  he  been  more 
squeamish  and  queasy-stomached  about  calling  a  spade  a 
spade,  he  would  not  have  come  down  to  posterity  as  that 
unrivalled  portrayer  of  contemporary  men  and  manners 
which  he  undoubtedly  was.  Do  not  let  us  therefore  con- 
demn Dunbar  for  encouraging  immorality,  when  in  reality 
he  was  doing  nothing  more  than  painting  faithfully  the 
manners  of  the  Augustan  age  in  Scots  literature  ! 


WILLIAM  DUNBAR  143 

But  to  return  to  Dunbar's  amatory  poetry.  In  a 
chronological  order,  the  poem  To  a  Lady,  and  com- 
mencing 'Sweet  rose  of  virtue  and  of  gentleness,'  marks 
the  first  mention  made  of  the  tender  passion.  That  he 
did  not  realise  then  how  hopeless  was  his  passion  is 
evident.  He  speaks  of  her  as  '  merciless,'  but  such  a 
word  must  not  be  conceived  to  carry  with  it  the  least 
suggestion  of  dishonour  in  any  of  the  favours  he  hoped 
to  receive  from  his  lady-love.  Dante  towards  his  Beatrice, 
Petrarch  towards  Laura,  were  not  more  content  with  a 
look,  a  smile,  or  a  word  of  thanks,  than  was  William 
Dunbar  to  his  lady-love,  in  whose  honour  he  writes  those 
charming  odes  in  which  he  immortalises  the  perfections 
of  the  lady  of  his  heart.  The  unfamiliarity  of  the  language 
to  many  will  detract  from  the  supreme  delight  in  store 
for  those  who  possess  the  Sesame  of  acquaintance  with  it. 
The  latter  then  will  be  able  to  corroborate  my  criticisms, 
when  I  say  that  these  love-poems  are  only  excelled  in  Scots 
literature  by  Robert  Burns's  songs.1  There  is  visible  in 
them  a  tender  grace,  an  exquisite  sympathy  with  the  object 
of  his  affection,  a  sweetness  of  rhythmical  flow,  and  an 
artistic  deftness  in  technical  craftsmanship,  that  stamp  the 
poems  as  almost  sui  generis.  With  the  best  of  the  Eliza- 
bethans we  can  claim  kinship  for  him,  and  some  of  Thomas 
Watson's  finest  pieces  in  the  Hecatompathia  are  more  than 
rivalled  by  these  noble  odes.    To  Watson's  eleventh  sonnet,2 

'  O  golden  bird  and  Phoenix  of  our  age, 
Whose  swete  records  and  more  than  earthly  voice,' 

1  See  Mr,    Logie   Robertson   on  this  subject   in  his    excellent    paper 
'  Dunbar  and  Burns.' 
"  Vide  Poems  of  Thomas  Watson  (1552-1597),  in  the  Arber  Reprints. 


i44  FAMOUS  SCOTS 

I  consider  Dunbar's  ode  to  his  mistress  as  bearing  a  close 
affinity.     The  following  is  the  poem  in  full — 

1  Sweet  Rose  of  virtue  and  of  gentleness, 
Delightsome  lily  of  every  lustiness, 
Richest  in  bounty  and  in  beauty  clear, 
And  every  virtue  that  is  held  most  deir, 
Except  only  that  ye  are  merciless. 
Into  your  garth  this  day  I  did  pursue  : 
There  saw  I  flowers  that  fresh  were  of  hue, 
Both  white  and  red  most  lusty  to  be  seen, 
And  wholesome  herbs  upon  their  stalks  so  green  ; 
Vet  leaf  nor  flower  found  I  none  of  rue. 
I  doubt  that  March,  with  his  cold  blasts  so  keen, 
Has  slain  this  gentle  herb,  that  I  do  mean  : 
Whose  piteous  death  does  to  my  heart  such  pain 
That  I  would  fain  go  plant  his  root  again, 
So  comforting  his  leaves  to  me  have  been.' : 

The  ode  which  in  point  of  time  comes  next  bears  internal 
evidence  that  Dunbar  realised  the  fact  that  his  fair  charmer 
was  not  prepared  to  accord  him  even  so  much  as  a  look 
whereon  his  love-sick  heart  might  feed.  Yet  his  feelings 
were  under  such  admirable  control  that,  while  he  com- 
plains of  her  pitilessness,  he  nevertheless  remarks  that  he 
would  not  have  her  other  than  she  is.  Nobler  tribute 
to  pure  sweet  womanhood  has  never  been  paid  than  in 
those  beautiful  lines  in  the  poem  which  opens — 

'  My  heart's  trcsoiir  and  sweet  assured  foe.' 

The  second  stanza  is  undoubtedly  one  of  the  finest  Dunbar 

ever  penned — 

'  Have  mercy,  love,  have  mercy,  lady  bright, 
What  have  I  wrought  against  your  womanheid 
That  you  should  murder  me,  a  sack  less  wight 

1  Cf.  the  last  stanza  of  Burns's  Mary  Morison. 


WILLIAM  DUNBAR  145 

Trespassing  on  you  nor  in  word  nor  deed, 
That  ye  consent  thereto,  O  God  forbid. 
Leave  cruelty  and  save  your  man  for  shame, 
Or  through  the  world  quite  losed  is  your  name.3 

The  last  of  the  pieces  in  which  Dunbar  deals  with  the 
passion  of  love  is  that  entitled  Inconstancy  of  Love.  In 
it  the  great  poet,  while  recognising  the  hopelessness  of 
his  passion,  yet  declares  at  the  same  time  that  were 
Mistress  Musgrave  to  give  him  encouragement  the  slightest 
she  would  lower  herself  even  in  his  estimation  who  suffered 
by  what  he  called  her  cruelty.  It  is  a  charming  little  lyric, 
with  much  of  the  daintiness  of  Suckling  and  Herrick 
visible  in  it,  united  to  a  vigour  and  swiftness  of  thought  to 
which  the  Cavalier  poets  were  strangers.  Rather  of  some 
of  the  Elizabethan  odes  does  it  savour,  particularly  of  some 
of  Lyly's  and  Fletcher's.     The  poem  runs  as  follows — 

'  Who  will  behold  of  love  the  chance, 
With  sweet  deceiving  countenance, 
In  whose  fair  dissimulance 

May  none  assure  : 
What  is  begun  with  inconstance 
And  ends  not  but  in  variance 
She  holdeth  with  continuance 

No  serviture. 

Discretion  and  considerancc, 
Are  both  out  of  her  governance  ; 
Wherefore  of  it  the  short  pleasance 

May  not  endure. 
She  is  so  new  of  acquaintance, 
The  old  goes  from  rememberance, 
Thus  I  give  o'er  the  observance 

Of  love's  sweet J  cure. 

1    I  his  is  one  of  Branch's  conjectural  emendations.     Schipper  reads  '  of 
love's  cure.' 

K 


i46  FAMOUS  SCOTS 

It  is  a  point  of  ignorance, 

To  love  in  such  distemperance, 

Since  time  misspendit  may  avance 

No  creature. 
In  love  to  keep  allegiance, 
It  were  as  nice *  an  ordinance, 
As  though  one  bid  a  dead  man  dance, 

In  sepulture.' 

These  fragments  render  one's  regret  all  the  more  poignant 
that  our  poet  did  not  write  more  amatory  verses,  or,  if 
he  did  so,  that  more  of  it  has  not  come  down  to  our  days. 
What  we  have  only  whets  our  appetite  for  more.  As  a 
love-poet,  then,  Dunbar  stands  high,  not  by  any  means  in 
the  highest  place,  but  so  far  forward  in  the  great  Temple  of 
Poesy  as  to  render  his  work  eminently  worthy  of  attention 
by  every  student  of  the  erotic  verse  of  our  literature. 

But  as  an  elegist  Dunbar  once  more  steps  into  a 
supreme  place.  Elegiac  poetry  demands  for  its  success- 
ful execution  qualities  of  genius  so  opposite  in  character, 
and  yet,  at  the  same  time,  so  subtly  complementary  to 
one  another  in  the  production  of  a  great  imaginative 
creation,  that  the  individuals  are  few  indeed  who  have 
taken  a  high  place  in  this  form  of  composition.  With 
the  exception  of  the  Bion  of  Moschus,  the  Lycidas  of 
Milton,  the  Adonais  of  Shelley,  the  In  Memoriam  of 
Tennyson,  the  Thyrsis  of  Arnold,  and  the  Ave  atque  Vale 
of  Swinburne,  we  have  really  no  great  elegiac  strains  in 
the  history  of  the  literature  of  the  world.  To  these  I 
would  add  Dunbar's  Lament  for  the  Makars.  To  a  noble 
elevation  of  sentiment,  to  a  pathos  that  is  all  the  more 

1  '  Nice'  here  takes  its  primitive  meaning  of  foolish  or  silly. 


WILLIAM  DUNBAR  i47 

profound  because  seemingly  so  unpremeditated,  there  is 
united  a  stately  march  of  rhythm  that  is  suggestive  of  the 
muffled  music  at  some  great  military  funeral,  and  a  choice 
dignity  yet  severity  of  diction  that  is  eminently  in  keeping 
with  the  nature  of  the  theme.  With  Sheriff  Mackay1  I 
warmly  agree  when  he  remarks,  with  his  usual  penetration 
and  cultured  critical  instinct,  that  an  oration  of  Bossuet 
or  Massillon,  of  Taylor  or  South,  with  its  splendours  of 
pulpit  eloquence,  brings  less  intimately  home  to  us  the 
lessons  of  death.  To  the  other  great  elegy  which  came 
from  the  same  pen,  that  upon  the  Death  of  Bernard 
Stewart,  Lord  of  Aubigny,  the  same  criticism  applies, 
though  in  a  modified  form.  The  latter  poem  has  not  the 
same  elevation  as  the  Lament,  it  does  not  touch  the  same 
high-water  mark  of  pure  pathos  and  supreme  sympathy  with 
suffering.  Great  though  it  is,  and  of  a  greatness  unap- 
proached  by  any  of  the  other  elegies  in  his  own  country's 
literature,  it  will  never  evoke  the  same  profound  sense  of 
regret,  the  same  depth  of  feeling,  as  the  other.  The  Lament 
for  the  Makars 2  commences  as  follows — 

'  I  that  in  health  was  and  gladness, 
Am  troubled  now  with  great  sickness, 
Enfeebled  with  infirmity. 

Timor  mortis  conturbat  vie. 

Our  pleasure  here  is  all  vain  glory, 
This  false  world  is  but  transitory, 
The  flesh  is  britle,  the  fiend  is  slee.3 
Timor  mortis  conturbat  me. 


1  Introduction  to  the  Poems  of  Dunbar. 

2  Makars  is  the  old  word  for  poets  ;  as  a  poet— derived  from  the  Greek 
poio  to  do— implied  one  who  did  or  made  something,  so  the  Scots  term  by 
analogy  expresses  the  same  idea.  3  Cunning. 


148  FAMOUS  SCOTS 

The  state  of  man  doth  change  and  vary, 
Now  sound,  now  sick,  now  blyth,  now  sary,1 
Now  dancing  merry,  now  "like  to  dee," 
Timor  mortis  conturbat  me. 

No  state  on  earth  here  stands  sicker, 
As  with  the  wind  waves  the  wicker, - 
So  waves  this  world's  vanity. 
Timor  mortis  conturbat  me. 

Unto  the  Death  go  all  estates, 
Princes,  Prelates,  and  Potestates, 
Both  rich  and  poor  of  all  degree. 
Timor  mortis  conturbat  me. ' 

The  poet  then  proceeds  to  name  the  various  classes  that 
have  to  bow  to  death,  and  also  those  of  the  tuneful  poetic 
choir  of  which  he  was  then  the  only  one  surviving,  with 
the  exception  of  Kennedy,  who  lay  at  death's  door.  Ross 
comments  on  the  omission  of  the  name  of  James  I., 
to  which  I  would  add  that  of  Gavin  Douglas,  though 
regarding  the  latter  the  poet  might  argue  that  he  could 
not  be  included,  seeing  he  was  not  dead  but  in  excellent 
health.  The  solemn  and  ever-recurring  burden  of  the 
poem  produces  a  profound  effect  upon  the  mind,  which 
the  pathetic  and  affecting  conclusion  tends  to  deepen. 
The  Lament  for  the  Makars  is  one  of  those  imperishable 
poems  which  every  century  will  only  tend  to  make  more 
widely  popular. 

The  Elegy  on  the  Death  of  Bernard  Stewart,  Lord  of 
Aubigny,  is   likewise   a   piece   that  deserves  to   be  more 
generally  known.      Its  merits  will  appear  on  perusal.      I 
cite  a  stanza  or  two  of  it — 

1  Sorry.  2  '  Wicker '  means  reeds. 


WILLIAM  DUNBAR  149 

'  Complain  should  every  noble  valiant  knight, 
The  death  of  him  that  doughty  was  in  deed  ; 
That  many  a  foe  in  field  has  put  to  flight, 
In  weighty  wars,  by  wisdom  and  manhead  : 
To  the  Turk  sea  all  lands  did  his  name  dread, 
Whose  force  all  France  in  fame  did  magnifie, 
Of  so  high  price  shall  none  his  place  posseid,1 
For  he  is  gone,  the  Flower  of  Chivalrie. 

O  duleful  death  !  O  dragon  dolorous, 

What  hast  thou  done  to  dulefullie  devour, 

The  prince  of  knighthood,  noble  and  chivalrous, 

The  wit  of  wars,  of  arms  and  honour; 

The  top  of  courage,  the  strength  of  arms  in  stour, 

The  fame  of  France,  the  fame  of  Lombardy, 

The  choice  of  chieftains,  awful  in  armour, 

The  charbuckell 2  chief  of  every  chivalry. ' 

Space  will  not  permit  of  further  citation,  anxious  though 
I  am  to  give  it.  Sufficient,  however,  has  been  adduced 
in  the  way  of  example  to  prove  my  contention  that  in 
elegy,  as  in  satire  and  allegorical  composition,  Dunbar's 
place  in  English  literature  is  by  prescriptive  right  to  be 
enrolled  among  the  very  highest  masters  of  the  craft. 

1  Possess.  -  The  carbuncle,  esteemed  then  of  great  value. 


CHAPTER    XIII 

DUNBAR   AS    A    PAINTER    OF   CONTEMPORARY  MANNERS — AS 
A    DIDACTIC    OR    RELIGIOUS    POET — CONCLUSION 

And  now,  before  bringing  this  little  sketch  to  a  conclusion, 
I  would  like  to  add  a  single  word  upon  Dunbar's  powers 
as  a  painter  of  contemporary  manners.  From  the  work 
of  Pitscottie  and  other  early  Scots  chroniclers  we  are 
enabled  to  form  a  very  exact  and  fair  estimate  as  to 
whether  Dunbar  is  to  be  regarded  as  a  faithful  and  vera- 
cious mirror  of  the  spirit  of  his  time.  The  great  office 
of  the  poet,  as  of  the  dramatist,  is  to  hold  the  mirror  up 
to  nature,  to  reflect  in  his  verse  the  most  delicate  finances 
as  well  as  the  most  startling  colours  of  the  age  wherein 
he  lived.  Valuable  indeed  it  is  to  the  antiquary,  to  the 
historian,  and  to  the  artist  to  have  the  spirit  of  the  age 
portrayed  with  such  matchless  truth  as  it  exists  for  us 
in  the  verse  of  Dunbar.  As  a  painter  of  contemporary 
manners,  then,  his  powers  were  of  the  noblest  order.  He 
had  all  the  vividness  of  a  Callot,  united  to  the  broad 
humour  of  a  Teniers,  and  the  minute  touch  of  a  Meissonier. 
To  Dunbar  every  historian  from  Drummond  to  Burton,  as 
well  as  every  Scots  artist  from  Jameson  to  our  own  immortal 
Sir  Noel  Paton,  has  repaired  for  information  regarding 
the  humours  of  the  age  in  the  reign  of  the  greatest  of  the 

150 


WILLIAM  DUNBAR  151 

Stuarts.      As  Tytler1  very  pithily  puts  it,  the  whole  life 
of  James  and  his  Court,  of  the  Edinburgh  of  the  sixteenth 
century,  and  the  Scotland  of  the  same  period,  flash  back 
once  more  upon  us  from  the  literary  mirror  of  this  great 
artist.     His  poems  enable  us  to  accompany  the  King  to 
his  chapel-royal  at  Stirling ;  we  see  the  boys  of  the  choir 
bending  down  to  remove  his  spurs,  and  to  receive  their 
accustomed  largesse;  we  follow  James  in  his  progresses 
through  his  royal  burghs,  and  listen  to  the  thanks  of  the 
guidwife  of  the  King's  lodging  as  the  generous  monarch 
bestows  his  gratuity  on  her ;  we  climb  the  romantic  crag 
on  which  St.  Anthony's  Chapel  is  situated  and  almost  hear 
his  confession ;  we  can  follow  him  into  his  study,  and  find 
him  adding  to  the  scanty  library  which  was  all  the  times 
permitted  even  to  a   king,   the  works  of  Quintilian  and 
Virgil,  and  the  '  Sangbuiks  '  in  which  he  took  such  delight ; 
his  shooting  at  the  butts  with  his  nobles;  his  bandying 
jokes  with  his  artillerymen ;  his  issuing  to  the  chase  or  the 
tournament  from  his  royal  castles  of  Stirling  or  Falkland, 
surrounded  by  a  cavalcade  of  noble  knights  and  beautiful 
damsels ;  his  presence  at  the  christening  of  the  Earl  of 
Buchan's  son,  and  the  gold  piece  which  he  drops  into  the 
caudle — all  are  conjured  up  before  us,  as  by  the  wand  of 
potent  magician,  in  the  pages  of  these  wonderfully  varied 
poems.     So  realistic  are  the  pictures,  so  graphically  por- 
trayed are  the  sayings  and  doings  of  the  characters,  that 
we  lose  sight  of  our  prosaic  present  altogether,  and  seem 
transported  back  into  that  romantic  time,  rose-tinted  and 
fascinating  with  all  the  glories  of  the  past,  which  lives  in 

1  Tytler's  Lives  of  Scottish  Worthies. 


152  FAMOUS  SCOTS 

the  verse  of  William  Dunbar.  The  reader  who  studies  with 
care  Dunbar's  Dirge  to  the  -King,  Tidings  from  the  Session, 
The  Devil's  Inquest,  To  the  Merchants  of  Edinburgh,  The 
Joust  between  the  Tailor  and  the  Soutar,  The  Flyting  of 
Dunbar  and  Kennedy — the  last  named  of  which  I  have 
said  nothing  in  my  poetical  criticisms,  because  it  is  only 
valuable  from  a  biographical  and  historic  point  of  view, — 
The  Testament  of  Mr.  Andro  Kennedy,  The  Queen's  Recep- 
tion at  Aberdeen,  and  other  poems  of  a  kindred  nature, 
will  have  thereby  gained  an  insight  into  the  manners 
of  the  Scotland  of  the  sixteenth  century  obtainable  in 
no  other  way.  To  substantiate  a  statement  so  sweep- 
ing, I  trust  I  shall  not  be  thought  tedious  if  I  cite 
a  few  lines  from  Dunbar's  remarkable  poem,  the  Remon- 
strance to  the  King,  upon  which  I  have  already  drawn 
some  pages  back. 

The  poet  is  speaking  of  the  crowd  of  needy  adventurers 
that  throng  the  Court. 

'  Kirkmen,  courtmen,  and  craftsmen  fine, 
Doctors  in  jure  and  medicyne  : 
Divinours,  rhetours,  and  philosophours  : 
Astrologists,  artists,  and  Oratours  : 
Men  of  amies  and  valiant  Knights  : 
And  mony  other  goodly  wights  : 
Musicians,  minstrels,  and  merry  singers, 
Chevalouris,  callandaris,  and  flingars, 
Cunyeours,  carvours,  and  carpenters, 
Buildars  of  barks  and  ballingars, 
Masouns,  lying  upon  the  land, 
And  ship  wrights  hewing  upon  the  strand, 
Glasing  wrights,  goldsmiths,  and  lapidaris, 
Printers,  paintours,  and  potingaris.' 

All   these  mingle  and  elbow   and  jostle  each  other   at 


WILLIAM  DUNBAR  153 

the  King's  motley  Court  in  order  to  obtain  an  audience 
with  the  man  whose  smile  made  or  marred  them.  Oh, 
it  was  a  strange  rout !  but  how  it  lives  and  moves  and 
has  its  being  in  the  pages  of  this  wonderful  literary 
artist ! 

Finally,  of  Dunbar  as  a  didactic  or  religious  poet  I 
should  like  to  say  a  word.  His  work  in  this  department 
is  full  of  significance  to  the  student  of  Scots  literature. 
The  poems  falling  under  this  category  evince  an  exalted 
spiritual  enthusiasm,  a  noble  belief  in  all  the  great  Christian 
verities,  with  a  passionate  assertion  of  the  proposition  that 
religion  is  not  a  thing  of  rites  and  ceremonies,  but  a  rela- 
tion established  between  man  and  his  Maker.  Crashaw 
has  risen  to  no  more  exalted  height  of  spiritual  fervour 
than  appears  in  his  pieces  on  the  Nativity  and  Passion  of 
Christ :  while  all  the  calm,  devotional  elevation  of  Herbert, 
the  purity  and  incisiveness  of  Vaughan,  and  the  vigorous 
thought  of  Quarles  appear  in  such  poems  as  Love  Earthly 
and  Divine,  The  Manner  of  Passing  to  Confession,  The 
Table  of  Confession,  The  Resurrection  of  Christ,  and  the 
two  Ballads  on  Our  Lady.  The  mind  that  could  rise 
to  such  a  soaring  altitude  of  spiritual  enthusiasm  as  is 
evinced  in  the  following  lines  must  have  been  deeply 
imbued  with  true  religious  feeling — 

'  Though  I  have  naught  thy  precious  feet  to  kiss, 
As  had  the  Madelene  when  she  did  mercy  crave, 
I  shall  as  she  weep  tears  for  mine  amiss, 
And  every  morrow  seek  thee  at  thy  grave  : 
Therefore  forgive  me  as  Thou  her  forgave  ; 
That  seest  my  heart  as  hers  is  penitent, 
That  precious  body  ere  that  I  receave, 
I  cry  Thee  mercy  and  leisure  to  repent. 


154  FAMOUS  SCOTS 

'  To  make  me,  Jesu,  on  Thee  for  to  remember, 
I  ask  Thy  Passioun  in  me  so  to  abound ; 
While  naught  of  me  unmenyeit  be  ane  member,1 
But  feeling  woe  with  Thee  in  every  wound, 
And  every  stroke  make  through  my  heart  a  stound 
That  ever  did  asting  Thy  fair  flesh  innocent, 
So  that  no  part  be  of  my  body  sound, 
But  cry  Thee  mercy  and  leisure  to  repent. ' 

Dunbar  was  a  careful  metrical  craftsman.  To  any  one 
who  reads  his  works  with  attention  the  conviction  is 
powerfully  driven  home  that  a  more  fastidious  furbisher 
of  his  work  after  its  first  rough  execution  has  rarely  been 
known  in  Scots  literature.  Though  his  spontaneity  and 
facility  were  quite  equal  to  that  of  Burns  and  Scott,  he 
was  a  much  more  careful  artist  than  either  of  them.  He 
was  fond  of  experimenting  in  various  measures,  and  there 
is  scarcely  a  metrical  form  among  those  that  are  better 
known  among  scholars  which  Dunbar  did  not  essay.  That 
he  was  equally  successful  in  all  cannot  be  asserted,  but  in 
most  of  them,  and  particularly  in  those  which  were  the 
popular  measures  of  the  day,  he  exhibits  a  technical  per- 
fection and  an  artistic  grace  rare  indeed  in  his  age. 

We  have  already  noted  that  in  some  respects  he  is 
surpassed  by  his  rival  Kennedy  in  mellifluous  sweetness 
and  rhythmic  music.  But  what  Dunbar  might  lack  in 
polish  as  compared  with  his  friend  and  rival,  he  more 
than  redeemed  by  his  vigour  and  robust  force.  This  is 
at  once  visible  when  we  compare,  side  by  side,  such 
poems  as  Kennedy's  Passion  of  Christ  and  Dunbar's 
pieces  on  the  same  theme,  or  on  The  Nativity  or  his 
Ballad  of  Our  Lady.     Kennedy  has  sweetness  with  grace, 

1  '  While  naught  of  me  be  untouched  by  Thy  anguish. ' 


WILLIAM  DUNBAR  155 

Dunbar  has  both  sweetness  and  grace,  with  intellectual 
force  superadded. 

Lastly,  Dunbar's  diction  is  eminently  worthy  of  study. 
As  has  been  previously  remarked,  it  is  notable  for  its  pure 
Anglo-Saxon  foundation.  Though  he  uses  many  Latinised 
forms,  and  also  several  that  exhibit  traces  of  that  influence 
exercised  on  the  style  of  our  sixteenth -century  Scots 
writers  by  their  intimate  intercourse  with  France,  still 
Dunbar  generally  prefers  a  Saxon  to  a  Latin  or  Gallic 
derivative,  where  the  first  named  will  express  his  meaning 
with  equal  precision  and  force.  His  vocabulary,  as  a 
whole,  is  rich,  and  his  command  over  the  resources  of  the 
language  quite  as  imperial  as  that  of  Chaucer.  This  fact 
is  most  apparent  in  his  Thistle  and  the  Rose  and  in  The 
Golden  Targe. 

Such  then  was  William  Dunbar,  who  with  the  mighty 
ploughman-poet  of  Ayr  and  '  the  last  and  greatest  of  the 
minstrels '  form  the  supreme  trio  of  Scottish  poets.  Great 
as  compared  with  his  contemporaries,  he  becomes  greater 
when  we  estimate  his  rank  by  the  work  of  the  other 
singers  both  of  his  own  century  and  those  that  succeed. 
He  is  verily  a  giant  in  an  age  of  pigmies.  By  Edinburgh 
citizens  also  Dunbar  has  every  claim  to  be  regarded  as 
one  of  the  oldest,  if  not  the  oldest,  of  that  glorious 
family  of  sons  who  loved  the  '  romantic  town '  with  a 
veneration  that  partook  somewhat  of  the  nature  of  a 
religious  worship.  Though  Dunbar  was  not  a  native 
of  the  city,  though  his  experiences  of  his  life  within  her 
walls  were  not  altogether  of  the   pleasantest   character, 


156  FAMOUS  SCOTS 

though  he  suffered  the  continual  pinch  of  poverty,  being 
oppressed  with  what  was  to  a  courtier  the  direst  of  all 
diseases,  atrophy  of  the  purse,  still  his  happiness  through- 
out these  years  was  unquestionable.  The  epithets  em- 
ployed in  Dunbar's  Dirge  to  the  King  at  Stirling  were 
not  wholly  the  result  of  the  artistic  exigencies  of  the  case, 
but  to  some  extent  at  least  expressed  his  own  personal 
feelings.  If  Edinburgh  were  Paradise,  as  he  states,  and 
Stirling  its  antipodes,  Dunbar  testified  to  his  desire  to 
remain  in  Paradise  by  clinging  with  a  devotion  that  was 
both  patriotic  and  pathetic  to  the  city  of  his  adoption. 
But,  alas  !  she  repaid  his  love  by  over  two  centuries  of 
neglect.  Only  with  the  advent  of  the  present  century, 
and  the  awakening  of  a  genuine  patriotic  enthusiasm 
among  her  sons,  has  his  name  and  fame  been  disinterred 
by  the  fond  admiration  of  Sir  Walter  Scott,  David  Laing, 
Hill  Burton,  yEneas  Mackay,  and,  earliest  of  all,  Lord  Hailes. 
Among  the  memorials  raised  to  commemorate  the  men 
who  lived  and  loved  and  laboured  in  the  queen  city  of 
the  Forth,  not  the  least  noble  tribute  is  due  by  right 
prescriptive  to  him  who  was  Scotland's  earliest  poet, 
who,  in  the  truest  sense  of  the  word,  was  national,  and 
who,  by  the  indefeasible  passport  of  his  supreme  genius, 
has  an  indisputable  title,  in  the  apostolic  succession  of 
British  poetry,  to  that  place  between  Chaucer  and  Spenser 
— that  place  which  can  only  be  claimed  by  one  whose 
genius  was  co-ordinate  with  theirs. 


INDEX 


Aberdeen,  103,  104. 
Albany,  Duke  of,  117,  120. 
Andre,  Bernard,  jj. 
Angus,  Earl  of,  10,  19,  120. 
Argyll,  Earl  of,  10. 
Arnold,  Matthew,  146. 
Athole,  Earl  of,  10. 
Ayala,  Pedro  de,  61. 

Barton,  Sir  Andrew,  11,  no. 

Benedictines,  the,  13,  26. 

Bion,  146. 

Blackadder,  Archbishop,  47,  54,   73, 

in. 
Boccaccio,  55. 
Borchloen,  J.  L.  de,  31. 
Bossuet,  147. 
Bothvvell,  Earl  of,  73. 
Breton,  Nicolas,  135. 
Bruce,  87. 
Brunelleschi,  55. 
Buchanan,  George,  26,  29. 

Robert,  63. 

Burns,  137,  143. 
Burton,  Hill,  n,  156. 
Butler,  126. 
Byzantine,  n. 

Caithness,  Earl  of,  10. 
Calderon,  136. 
Carey,  Sir  R.,  88. 
Chaucer,  9,  45,  51,  125,  157. 
Chepman,  Walter,  12. 

and  Myllar,  97. 

Churchill,  135. 
Claudero,  87. 
Clerk  of  Tranent,  99. 
Colet,  11,  28. 
1  lum  55. 


Confession,  Dunbar's  poems  on,  32. 
Crauford,  Earl  of,  10. 
Crichton,  the  Admirable,  29. 

Damirn,  John,  89. 

Dante,  55. 

Dispensation,  Papal,  j^. 

Dominicans,  the,  26. 

Donatello,  55. 

Donne,  135. 

Douglas,  Gavin,  14,  17,  18,  20,  88, 
90,  123. 

Douglases,  the,  19. 

Drummond,  family  of,  51,  52. 

W.,ofHawthorndcn,ii3,ii4,iis. 

Dryden,  18,  22,  135. 

Dunbar,  William,  his  contempo- 
raries, 9-22 ;  birth  and  parentage, 
23,  24  ;  studies  at  St.  Andrews,  30, 
at  Oxford  and  Paris,  32 ;  life  as  a 
friar,  35,  38 ;  King's  messenger, 
45 ;  travels  in  Europe,  47,  49 ; 
travels  with  regard  to  the  royal 
marriage,  52,  54,  57;  engaged  in 
the  Fly  ting,  60,  61,  68  ;  first 
pension,  69 ;  visit  to  England,  73, 
74 ;  poem  on  London,  75  ;  presents 
Epithalamium,  81 ;  first  mass,  90 ; 
pleading  for  benefice,  93  ;  second 
pension,  94 ;  relations  with  Mrs. 
Musgrave,  95 ;  illness,  98  ;  visits 
Aberdeen,  103,  104 ;  against  assist- 
ing France,  112  ;  his  action  during 
Flodden  period,  10,  100  ;  supposed 
year  of  death,  122  ;  as  an  allegorist 
and  satirist,  124  ;  as  a  love-poet  and 
elegist,  140 ;  painter  of  contempor- 
ary manners  and  religious  poet,  150. 

Duthac's,  St.,  103. 

157 


153 

Edinburgh,  80. 
Elphinstone,  Earl  of,  10. 
Erasmus,  n,  12,  29. 
Errol,  Earl  of,  10. 


FAMOUS  SCOTS 


Falstaff's  recipe,  41. 

Ferdinand  and  Isabella,  56,  72. 

Fergusson,  Robert,  87. 

Flodden,  10,  100. 

Florence,  60. 

Fly  ting,  The,  15,  16,  34,  39,  60. 

Forbes,  Lord,  10. 

Forman,  Andrew,  73,  111. 

Franciscans,  the,  24,  25,  26,  34,  42,  90.  j 

Franco,  Matteo,  16,  59. 

Friars,  the  Scots,  38. 

Giotto,  55. 
Gratuities,  royal,  70. 
Great  Michael,  n,  no. 
Greece,  n. 
Greyfriars,  25,  90. 
Grocyn,  n,  28. 

Haddington,  24,  25. 
Hailes,  Lord,  18. 
Hall,  Bishop,  135. 
Haroun  Alraschid,  11. 
Hay,  Sir  Gilbert,  99. 
Henry  VII.,  73,  76,  82,  96. 

vin.,  13,  20,  102,  112. 

Henryson,  Robert,  13,  14,  99. 

Hertford,  Earl  of,  88. 

Heryot,  99. 

Honour,  Palice  oj,  17,  19. 

Horace,  18. 

Hume,  Sir  Patrick,  60. 

Illuminati,  11. 

James  i.,  24,  45. 

11.,  100. 

in.,  43- 

iv.,  10,  12,  13,  44.  S6>  76,  79- 

87,  100,  102,  113,  115. 


James  v.,  100,  117. 

vi.,  88. 

Johnstoun,  Patrik,  99. 

Jointure,  Margaret's  marriage,  74- 

Juana  Donna,  72. 

Julius  11.,  Pope,  102. 

Justice,  College  of,  35. 

Kennedy,  Bishop,  28,  47. 
Kennedy,  Walter,  15,  16,  39,  59,  60, 

62,  63,  65,  154. 
Knox,  John,  26,  29,  30. 

Laing,  David,  24,  31,  124. 

Lamberton  Kirk,  79. 

Lennox,  Earl  of,  10. 

Leo  X.,  no,  122. 

Leyrva,  John,  26. 

Linacre,  n,  28. 

Lokert,  Sir  Mungo,  99. 

Louis  XII.,  102,  in. 

Lowell,  J.  R.,  125. 

Lundy,  Sir  Robert,  7^. 

Lyndsay,  Sir  David,  17,  22,  122. 

Mackay,  Sheriff,  62,  121,  156. 

Makar,  the,  13. 

Makars,  The  Lament  for,  17,  98,  147. 

Mar,  Earl  of,  10. 

Margaret,  Queen,  13,  73,  76,  78,  96. 

Marriage,  royal,  81. 

Massillon,  147. 

Maxwell,  Lord,  10. 

Medici,  Lorenzo  de,  40,  46,  56,  59. 

Melville,  Andrew,  26,  29. 

Mersar,  22. 

Messenger,  King's,  45. 

Milton,  146. 

Montgomerie,  Alex.,  60. 

Morley,  Professor,  n. 

Morton.  Earl  of,  10. 

Moschus,  146. 

Mouth-thankless,    Invective    against, 

17- 
Musgrave,  Mrs.,  84,  95,  141. 
Myllar,  Andro,  13. 


INDEX 


i59 


New  World,  55. 
Newfoundland,  55. 
Nightingale,  Merle  and,  15. 

Observantines,  Order  of,  25,  34,  42. 
Oxford,  11. 


Papyngo,  Complaint  of  King's, 
Passion  of  Christ,  The,  17. 
Paton,  Sir  Noel,  150. 
Pensions,  Dunbar's,  69. 
Pitscottie,  11. 
Pope,  18,  135. 
Praise  of  Age,  The,  17. 
Printing,  Scots,  12. 
Pulci  Luigi,  16,  59. 

Quadrivium,  the,  26. 

Raphael,  56. 

Realm,  Estates  of,  y^,  120. 

Renaissance,  the,  11,  28. 

Robene  and  Makyne,  14. 

Rome,  11. 

Rose,  Thistle  and  the,  15,  17. 

Rosebery,  Earl  of,  24. 

Ross,  Sir  John  the,  60,  99. 

Ross,  Lord,  10. 

Roull  of  Aberdeen,  99. 

Scaligers,  the,  29. 
Schaw,  Quintyne,  60,  99. 
Schevaz,  William,  31,  46. 
Schipper,  Dr.,  23,  45,  69,  121. 


17- 


Shelley,  146. 

Sinclair,  Lord,  10. 

Smeaton,  Principal  T.,  26,  29. 

Spenser,  9,  126,  157. 

Stewart,  house  of,  10. 

Swift,  135. 

Swinburne,  63,  146. 

Targe,  The  Golden,  15. 
Tasso,  56. 
Tennyson,  146. 
Trail,  Sandy,  99. 
Trivium,  26. 

University,  Aberdeen,  u. 

Glasgow,  11. 

Oxford,  11,  32,  34. 

Paris,  32,  33,  34. 

St.  Andrews,  11,  19,  23,  28,  30. 

Vautrollier,  65. 
Venice,  53. 

Vergil,  Polydore,  20,  jy. 
Vinci,  Leonardo  da,  56, 

Wallace,  87. 
Wardlaw,  Bishop,  28. 
Watson,  Thomas,  143. 
Wood,  Sir  Andrew,  11. 
Wyntoun,  99. 

XiMENES,  Cardinal,  54. 

Yellow  Caravel,  11. 


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